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Before you drill the new holes, take the downlighters out and have a feel around to make sure there are no joists or other obstacles where you plan to drill, otherwise you'll get a new hole you can't use .... in fact the presence of joists might explain why the lights are in slightly odd...

If you got the fire-rated IP65 fittings they should be OK. When you said "new house" did you mean new-build or just new to you? If the ceiling is plasterboard you can use the downlighters, if it's and older house with lathe and plaster you'll be asking for trouble - these fittings were never...

400-year-old cottages did not, when built, have anything electrical, so any modern additions will by definition be out of place. So whatever goes in needs to combine practicality with whatever aesthetics suit the rest of the decor and/or the owner's preferences. pj

Most "ordinary" dimmers are what's called leading edge (it's to do with the way they work) and LEDs generally need "trailing edge" dimmers. They also need a much lower minimum operating wattage (your 8 LEDs max at 32W, and allowing for a couple of failures you'll want the dimmer to keep...

Or wire a resistor into the circuit to achieve the same result. PJ

At the risk of adding to your woes, if there are no screws visible it might be that the fitter used silicon or Gripfill on the chimney, which could mean even more collateral damage when you try to remove it. Any chance you can contact the installer and check with him what he did? PJ

Have you read the instructions that came with the new stat? Usually they have charts of various makes of stat showing how the old wiring relates to the new one. PJ

The OP iis (claims to be?) female - "my husband and I" - and gets the shocks off the tiles as well as the edges of the bath. When I was a kid my parents moved housse and were redecorating, and my mum kept getting these same tingles off the wall when splashing on water to strip the old wallpaper...

When your E14s stop working are you sure the filament has blown? Screw-in lamps are just as likely to suffer from bad connection as the terminals in the lamp holder lose their spring with age and no longer make sufficient contact with the lamp contacts. PJ

RCD trips don't necessarily respond to faults inside the property - they can be caused from outside, particularly when overhead supplies are involved. I've known two occasions where this was the case - each time the DNO came and had a look at the pole connections, denied it was anything to do...

Fluorescents have basically three active components - tube, starter and ballast. If you've replaced two that leaves the third. You could open it upand check the wiring, but from your description of events I think a loose connection or fried wire is unlikely. PJ

As you're in the trade, isn't there a friendly sparks on site you could get to come and put it right for you? PJ

If the cables were to sag four inches across the void ebtween two joists, touching your hot pipes would be the least of anyone's worries!!! PJ

Talk to the tanking company. They're responsible for the waterproofing and will carry the guarantee that it stays dry - they should be working with you to ensure that whatever you (and the plumbers etc) do doesn't muck up their warranty. PJ

An old fuse box will always provoke adverse comment from the buyer's surveyor and the buyer can then use that to push for a price cut, invariably more than the price of a new board. Assuming the wiring is PVC/PVC (more than likely in the '60s) then a board update would be worth the cost...

And check the bulb pj

Power goes, each inverter is "aware" of the fact and shuts down, so no generation for other inverters to feed off. I think it's safe to assume that in the many years panels and inverters have been around (in Germany if not the UK) this one has been tested out and been found to work. I also...

In answer to the first part pof the question, if there's a power failure the inverter disconnects and no power is generated, otherwise whoever's fixing the transformer would get 240V coming the wrong way. The choice between buying the panels and getting them free: Buy them and they belong to...

Oh for those happy far off days when all you had to do was buy a light bulb. Now we have so many shapes, size, colours, technologies, fittings .... Time was I could keep a box of lamps on the van and provide them gratis to customers when needed. Now there are just too many different sorts...

Where are you getting the incoming power supply from? PJ