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You are not alone there. If i was being cynical, sounds like nothing much other than extracting some % from otherwise existing businesses and customers via some techy, appy type stuff. Somehow. Or put another away, someone with some techy knowledge trying to answer a question, that nobody is asking.

The flow rate is much lower than 15mm, which is fine for low lpm flow rate outlets, however, I have done this a couple of times and then noticed the cisterns take around twice as long to refill. Not a problem in say a cloak WC, I actually plumbed one like this early on this week, but if you wake up to use an ensuite and flush the loo, you don’t want the torture of waiting an age for the sound of it filling to stop. I stay in a lot of hotels and the one I’m in atm has a gravity CWS that fills the WC’s. Takes bloody ‘forever’ for it to shut up so my brain can tune back out. I’d recommend sticking with 15mm feeds to all WC’s or accept the above bug.

It may be they just don’t like building materials as it could apply to everything. My claim was only slightly more specific ie. plastering materials, electrical components, timber, decorating supplies. Where it was a mixed purchase, I picked the biggest value materials. That was 3 years ago so things might have changed.

You can get Hep2O flexible hoses, but they also do a bewildering array of tap connectors. I've got 10mm Hep2O pipe taking hot to various basins and am also considering the same for cold to cisterns. Is there any reason not to like the HD26A/10W which is plastic hand tighten and includes a rubber washer. It's all white which helps it to blend in. Is a visible Hep2O pip considered naff vs a flexible hose? 10mm Hep2O is more discrete in many ways. Plumbing Superstore have a good price on them (£1.70inc each) but delivery on top pushes it up.

@Adele Tractor, which local council are you with?

1. 1 length of skirting for the return to the left of the front door, 2.screws for skirting 3. mastic for skirting .. 99. What chance they say that's too much info? Other people have done this so I hope they can advise.

They just said ‘please update the descriptions with more detail’. And how much do you want to bet that if I provide exact details of every item, they won’t know how to categorise everything and then ask me to put items in more general categories…

Do you know to what extent? it could be a long list. This is really useful info for lots of us. Thanks for it.

I'd suggest a clear view on what it is you wish to do. Between your two posts there's not a lot of overlap on what you are thinking, other than the word "platform". Is that the tech definition of "platform"? ie. a digital infrastructure that provides tools for other applications, services, or products to be built, run, and interact? Perhaps I'm having a bad day, but I'm really not sure what you are wanting to do.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj9xe09jz4eo https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/jackdaw-gasfield-set-to-be-approved-by-ministers-this-month-sources-say Looks like the government is going to approve Jackdaw and Rosebank. We shall be back to 1p kWh gas and probably under £1 liter of petrol before Christmas! /S Well that's what you'd think if you listened to the bosses of those projects. "Chris O'Shea, the boss of British Gas owner Centrica, said any additional domestic gas supply would reduce Britain's reliance on imported fossil fuels, "so it's got to be good"..." But then he tries the pull off the impressive feat of making an argument that he fatally undermined earlier in the same sentence .. "He told the BBC's Today programme: "It wouldn't lower the cost materially, but basic economics would tell you that if you've got a fixed demand for a product and you increase the supply, the price should move." So it won't do anything but basic economics says it will? There is much trumpeting that the gas field will produce, at it's peak, 6% of UK gas output - which opponents point out is only 2% of the UKs actual gas use. It would be really interesting to see exactly what the treasury outcome is in all of this. I know there will be some tax collected but that has to be set against the tax write-offs that this project will enable companies to utilise. I have seen various takes that place the final outcome anywhere from a few billion met revenue for the treasury over the lifetime to a few billion net loss. What would also be interesting would be how much an equivalent saving in gas would cost ie how much would we need to spend driving insulation, heat pumps etc to achieve an equivalent drop in UK gas consumption? IIRC turning down your thermostat reduces your gas consumption by about 10%. So Jackdaw is equivalent to 1 in 5 people turning their thermostat down by 1C.

Just got my reply - apparently the description ‘building materials’ for some of the invoices that contained multiple items from builders merchants was too vague. So they want more detailed descriptions and now I’m back to the end of the queue again.

I wonder why, even with the Sentinel X100 inhibitor, that the system has scaled up so much! Did you top up the inhibitor after each fill/top-up?

Amazon have a 'best price' policy. So that stops the traders selling bellow the Amazon price and also stops genuine bargains. Online trading is not for small sellers any more.

did I type that? sorry. btw that will be a litre of water or so over 25m2 of screed so it will dry in 1 or 2 days. It's one of these strange anomalies, that floorers want the screed to be ultra dry but will then happily paint it with a water based liquid, diluted up to 1:4. I think the instructions say 'allow it to dry'.

ST don't allow building over for new detached structures if the sewer is 300mm dia or more. They may have been more flexible for an extension eating into the working area either side of the pipe. Thames Water for instance will not allow new works over their larger sewers but will allow extensions to existing dwellings. The neighbour may have applied for permission for the extension and have been granted it subject to conditions. The garage could have of course been done on the fly or before any stricter policy has been brought in. You will have some idea as to the depth of the sewer from the neighbour's experience. You could try an application stressing the nature of the building, the depth of the sewer and agreeing to remove the structure if major sewer works are required (and that's pretty unlikely unless it's your works that have caused it).

I can see the merit in what you're trying to propose but I can't see the Amazon concept scaling to things like housebuilding. I imagine what you're offering is a marketplace where vendors will advertise their designs, and then buyers will come along and choose one that seems to get good reviews, they can see pics, talk to people etc before taking the plunge. And your platform takes a cut for connecting buyers and sellers together. The things to keep in mind are that self builds and the trades associated with them tend to be generally hyperlocal, the whole process is also intensely personalised. The people undertaking self builds are doing so because they don't like the identikit designs offered by volume developers, or they don't like the quality - so they're prepared to put up with the cost, hassle, time, effort, blood, sweat, tears and everything else that comes with the process. There is merit in making that process easier but a large part of that pain comes from the regulatory environment which you'd have no control over. The free market generally sorts out everything outside of that.

Sounds very scary. Makes me wonder which contractor has gone missing.

It's only fair to say that we don't know the relative skills or responsibilities of these consultants, and that the second one was not responsible for the main design, and may have had an equally acceptable proposal if they had been. There was not zero cost in stiffening the building with ply or osb, and a wind post might have been a good option IF incorporated from the outset.

Agreed, but it will be treated with the official blue primer and we might even preprime it with diluted unibond (myst remeber to give it tomd to dry) , and it will no longer be a porous, potentially dusty surface, but a very compact and tight surface I've never seen tiles or timber flooring float off the floor as gravity is useful. Might be otherwise with vinyl. I do realise why the floorers want this. Screeding contractors aren't always very skilled. Screed is overworked producing the laitence. Often there are tram lines and dimples, hollows and humps. Often the screed is recent or otherwise damp. Floorers don't know the difference between gypsum screed and concrete. Treating is added business. I'd be cautious too if it was my trade. But I've had this discussion on maybe 30 projects, and I've signed a disclaimer when required. My risk but several £k x 30 on the right side of the margin. My risk, my money. Lucky 30 times? No, it has always been a considered decision on a quality floor. If it was my client's money I'd make the same decision.

Show me please. "Should" is not a requirement. The 'trade' saying it is required doesn't count either. I'm not doing it anyway because it is very hard and would be an utter waste of money.

I'd be surprised. Clay should dig neatly so the concrete goes in efficiently. Also there are usually nasty extras with piling: mobilisation cost, hardstanding, muck arising from some methods, pile caps. Small fruit trees and pines don't need 2m deep trenches. Plus the closest distance does not apply to the whole building so can all be different depths.

Conifers at 10m are unlikely to be an issue but your designer will confirm that formally for the bco.

Ive never had 106 before just an email from local BCO saying in his experience local clay ground unsuitable for soakaway. Severn Trent accepted this. I think my conc was about 900 below ffl. Then 3 course block and 3 brick. For drainage and block and beam flooring etc

Thanks for all your replies - wow! it has certainly sparked much discussion. This response from Mpx is particularly useful as these are all barriers that i'm hoping the venture can help overcome eventually. For now though, my platform concept is simply an online marketplace/showroom for MMC builds - think of it like Amazon for homes. Users can select from a variety of customisable models, all of which have been user-reviewed and quality-assured, etc... Please note this is just the initial offering; I would plan to evolve it over time to help smooth out all the hurdles noted in MPx post. I would be interested in getting your thoughts on the initial Markeplace concept?

The vendor got consent (with S106). It’s on a road with the other back land developments so precedent has been set. Presumably not full fill trenches otherwise doesn’t concrete cost eventually overtake piling? Maybe I am worrying too much about the trench depth.