Hey friends,

This is the question I posed last week and the response:

92% of those of you who responded thought a whole suite should cost less than £3,500. My cunning plan was to show this to Abi to nudge her towards the lower end of the spectrum but she, who I should add works in market research, told me 'yeah but your DIY email buddies aren't a representative sample!'

Well we tried didn't we. I'm still hoping we can bring it in for under that top figure.

🚰 Plumbing

The plumber has now done his first first-fix and I'll do my best to explain.

The radiator pipes have been repurposed for a towel rail. Because we plan on having UFH, we won't need a large towel radiator. However due to the location of the joists, the plumber recommended going for a 600mm wide which has pipes 555mm apart. The piece of timber is keeping them in place until I can get some bonding plaster on. For ease of cleaning I was keen for the pipes to come out of the wall rather than the floor.

The pipes to the other radiator which was in the WC room have been capped off.

The new piping starts in the existing bathroom area which is where the airing cupboard is with the vented hot water cylinder. This is where he'll be installing the shower pump which I've read is the best place for it rather than under the bath or in the loft above as I first thought.

It will be a twin shower pump, upping the pressure of both the hot and the cold and therefore he's run two 22mm pipes.

The hot pipe will serve the bath, 2 shower heads and the sink while the cold will just serve the bath and 2 shower heads. The cold to the sink, which has reasonable enough pressure, is from the mains, not pumped from the tank. The benefit of this is we can grab a glass of water from it without worrying about any nasties. This cold water feed splits off to also fill the loo's cistern.

I presume the pipes from the bath/shower controls to the bath filler and showers will go under the bath to the stud wall on the far end so don't need to be under the floor.

New loos don't need an overflow (it goes into the loo apparently) so the existing pipe that flows out the wall can be removed. The old loo waste pipe will also be removed and a new one cut through. The wastes from the sink and bath will go across the wall to meet the vertical waste pipe.

It's a cast iron waste pipe and the plumber was nervous to cut it so far from the ground (3m?!) so I guess I'll be doing. This will then be replaced with a plastic section to allow the new waste pipes in. It's all got to be dealt with again when we do the rear extension but I'll worry about that when I get to it.

The first guy we had quote said he does everything in copper because we don't yet have the data on how plastic performs over the long term. The plumber we used said he uses plastic because it's rated for 25 years 🤷.

Certainly this flexible plastic stuff looks easy enough to run and connect together. I'm watching closely in the hope I can do the downstairs bathroom myself.

💷 The Budget

Some really good news in last week's budget. There will be no VAT for energy saving products like insulation, solar panels, heat pumps or wind or water turbines for the next five years. I think this is great and a much better approach than the short term schemes we've seen in the past where you get quoted an overinflated price because there aren't enough certified installers. This helps us DIYers, as long as suppliers don't try to pocket the difference.

🕰️ BST

Happy British Summer Time!! 🎉

Isn't it so much better? If it were up to me I'd push both BST and GMT forward +1 but hey, I'm a natural late riser. Year round BST would be pretty good though and would rid us of the clock changes but recently got rejected. Not everyone agrees with me but we surely we should at least give it a go for a year.

Expect a moan from me come Autumn.

⛽ Meter Readings

For those on the energy price cap, I read a tip I thought I'd pass on: take a pic of your meters on the 31st so you can prove how much energy you used before the price cap goes up on the 1st. Seems wise.

👋

FYI there won't be a newsletter next week as we have to go do a not-fun thing. We knew it was coming sometime in the next few months but we got the call and it requires our full attention. So everything is on hold for the time being. All being well I'll be back the week after next.

Hit "reply" if you've got any comments on this week's newsletter – otherwise I'll see you next time. Have an epic week :)

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