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There are basically two kinds of electric shower (1) "Electric shower" Cold only electric heating shower - this has a cold feed only, normally mains pressure, it has a small boiler inside which heats the water as it is used. This is the kind fitted in perhaps a majority of British houses. ...

If you have no water tanks at all (including hot water tank?), it sounds like you have a combination boiler. Depends how it works exactly but it would need a minimum flow to heat the water. When you switch your hot tap on, does the boiler ignite within a few seconds (in which case you have a combi b...

My 9.5KW electric shower uses about 4 litres of water a minute. Bung a bucket under the shower head and try it yourself on a typical setting. Most electric showers use full power but change the water flow to regulate the temperature, so it will always use 9.5 KWH. We don't normally use the gas to he...

I'm planning on putting a couple of tap feeds off, probably standard 15 mm pipe. Otherwise I had thought about pond liner too. Does render really need waterproofing added to it? Researching ferrocement tanks, seems you simply render them. Here is quite a nice link : http://www.lboro.ac.uk/well/resou...

I'd like to build a water tank to collect rainwater for watering our garden. We presently have an array of plastic butts but it doesn't use the space effiiciently. I want a low and long tank (about 2.4 metres long, 0.6m deep and 0.6 m tall) It can then also form a handy seat, or plant potting table ...

I installed solar water heating this winter, so I faced similar ideas that you did. I spent ages researching, reading and experimenting. Here are my results, and perhaps I can settle some of the things that people mention..... My dish washer was a cheap as chips one from B&Q (I wanted to buy it ...

update - solar now fitted and running. Yesterday saw 174 litres of water at 55 degrees.... I enjoyed a long hot bath :-) Kit installed - Navitron 30 tube kit. Very pleased, was very easy to fit, although the instructions were, er, well 'guidance notes' that needed a lot of adapating to the individua...

I wear 'type a' trousers, climbing chainsaw boots, gloves, helmet (with integrated ear defenders. I use a big stihl that deserves a lot of respect so I don't tend to chance it. I have my UK chainsaw and tree felling tickets and I'd say for any regular user it is well worth doing (but expensive). I w...

Just showed this post to my husband (we're just in the process of fitting solar panels and reworking our heating system), and he advises a visit to the navitron forum (just google navitron and you'll find it), which he has found really helpful and informative. He also says many plumbers are very wa...

Yes she does take the temp before putting the starter in, she says around 35 degrees but not that accurate! Our flask is an old stainless steel one. I don't suppose it's any better than any other, but maybe out kitchen is warmer.

Mrs W does the thermos flask method. Just asked her what she does. She started with a Yeo valley natural yogurt. We get reduced milk whenever we see it (last time was 5p/litre!). Boil the milk to kill bacteria, allow to cool, plop in a spoonful of commercial stuff then bung in the flask over night. ...

Lets see if this works.... Mrs W just pointed out she has made her own bag... it's a lunch bag.

I recently read that it takes more energy to produce a cloth bag than a plastic one. This was in Focus magazine I recall, sensationalist science but with a bit of real science behind it (well a lot more than the popular press that is!) Simply put, we should all have wicker baskets, locally grown and...

As far as I can tell reading between the lines of all the alarming hype, if your tank has the bacteria present it's still pretty hard to get infected by it as you have to inhale it through an atomised water droplet. Our shower is electric mains fed, so simply put I personally think the chances of us...

sorry, should have said, all mesures apart from the salt are cups... not a standardised american cup, just a domestic cup, as they are all the same measurement they are relative, so make as much or as little as you like. I'd go and make myself some now, however there's a glass of sloe gin and tonic ...