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The download speed is often throttled by the server supplying the data so it can serve many clients at once and not your network speed.

Our equipment has just been upgraded by the provider so we now get 100mbps compared to 50mbps before. The higher speed is free for a year but after that an extra £5 per month, or you can revert to 50mbps to keep the same price. for normal browsing of streaming tv etc I really can't see any difference. the only time it might make a difference is if you have a big download to do. i suspect at the end of the year we will revert to 50mbps. Both are far better than the max 3mbps and unreliable connection with frequent drop puts with ADSL.

Cricky there is more - a group in Japan build a .125mm glass fibre with 8 cores enclosed in its diameter they managed to crack the Peta bits per second barrier.

I have been searching around the forum for details of the plug spec. I am sure i have seen it before but cannot find it today. I know the resistor within is 4k ohm. I need to source the plug. Does anyone know what to order please?

However such restrictions could be voided by the law, as has happened in Germany. I'd sit on my hands for now and see what happens.

The rise of the professional politician? https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/the-diversity-of-mps-elected-in-2015-pale-male-and-stale/

Yep, tackle 100% of the floor in 40, 40 and 20% tranches and you may have cracked it! But don't quote me! My justification for spending more than I probably have to on Bldg Notices is to avoid the situation on a subsequent sale where a buyer's solicitor queries BC approval for specific works. If the answer is, or suggests that, that you don't have it they express 'outrage', which can be instantly dispensed with if you drop the price by £x000. I will have in my hand a sheaf of BC approvals and stand my ground.

So if it is "50% or more", then you can raise 40% of the floor boards for access or repair and it does not apply !!!! With a single bound you will be free !!! (I think) Though you may have already gone past this.

It won't open for me. Anyway, between us we have found a few interpretations. Authorities can't make up their own rules so these are their interpretation and could be argued with. I haven't done the important thing of looking at the actual regulations. It's the sort of issue that tempts one to just do it, which is generally a bad premise. By which I mean that the OP intends to make sensible improvements but what if the bco refuses or demands something else? And yet, it would be possible to cause harm and that should be controlled.

PPPS Nope that looks like a PR error with the date - they published the news on 1st April - not a good look but the research was presented in March so 450 million times stands!

PPS that was published on the first of April which may or may not be significant 🤔

PS Just found a piece of research that shows a group at UCL pushing a domestic fibre to 450million times the domestic speed.

I think the max theoretical speed of a domestic fibre is probably limitless but exploiting all the light bands tera byte speeds would be easy. The limits are imposed by what is on the end of the fibre. So splitting is not a problem but it would result in active hardware being out in the field and that's a problem of power although PV and batteries might solve that one for remote locations.

Just to report, our underfloor cooling is working nicely: 31 deg C outside, 23 deg C in the house - even with the lift and slide doors open. Beautiful day here in Dorset!

I recall in the early days it the internet, the dial up days, there were things called DACS boxes that split one telephone line to serve 2 properties. It limited the dial up speed to 33K rather than 56K I wonder after this initial fibre rollout, if they will introduce a similar fibre splitter? it would potentially halve the speed to the 2 properties but I doubt many people would notice if they could only get 500MB rather than 1 GB.

I was looking for an English source (as the above is from Wales) and found this in https://www.tameside.gov.uk/buildingcontrol/guidancenotes/note24guide1.pdf - it's at the bottom of p.1. It is the first time, as far as I know, that I have ever seen this: For some reason I cannot cut and paste from that pdf. It's at the very bottom of p.1 and begins 'From 9th January 2013... and in summary says "the installation of thermal insulation to suspended floors..." and ends "...is not considered to be controllable under the scope of these regulations". It's not what I have gleaned from other sources, and it obviously hasn't been proof-read!

@jimseng Are you dealing with BT or OpenReach? I’ve had a great experience dealing with OpenReach so far, for a new fibre connection in a rural area. Virgin quoted £100k, as their closest network was 16 miles away. OpenReach quoted £3k. Our area is not on any of the official development maps, so no plan to roll out fibre to the area within the next 5 years. I put in an application for a new connection, expecting it to be ridiculous. Luckily, the water pumping station that’s half a mile away has a massive fibre connection, which OpenReach can tap in to for our house. I need to trench and install junction boxes every 60m down our 250m driveway, but they are supplying all the ducting and boxes within the £3k.

@saveasteading, I agree it is not totally clear at first sight but I have queried and 'tested' this on many occasions. The impression I am left with is the same as this link suggests: https://www.carmarthenshire.gov.wales/council-services/building-control/building-regulation-applications/thermal-elements-application/ says: "Renovation of a Thermal Element means adding a new layer to a Thermal Element or the replacement of an existing layer. When the renovation is more than 50% of the surface of the individual element or 25% of the total of the building envelope, Building Regulations approval will be required prior to carrying out the work and the Thermal Element may require upgrading to provide more insulation. When assessing this area proportion it should be taken as that of the individual element, not all the elements of that type of building. The area of the element should be interpreted in the context of whether the element is being renovated from inside or outside, e.g. if removing all the plaster finish from the inside of a solid brick wall, the area of the element is the area of external wall in the room. If removing external render, it is the area of the elevation in which that wall sits. The consequence of this change is that much building work, previously exempt from the Building Regulations as it was considered a repair, may now require approval. For example: Replacement of a slate or tiled roof covering even if like for like Re-plastering of a wall Replacement of felt on a flat roof Renewal of a ceiling below a cold loft space External rendering or re-rendering of a wall Renewal of cladding to a dormer Renovation of a ground floor involving replacement of screed or timber decking" Something of even more interest (to the pocket at least) is that my LA used, many years ago, to charge me separately for each thermal element touched, whereas their final position was that one Bldg Notice application covered 1 *or more* thermal elements. Saved me (or rather the client) up to £360 on some jobs. Re netting, it's one of the 'hammocks' I used to use, until I started using breathable membrane which, when taped, not only holds up the quilt but also limits 'wind-wash'.

Another thought. You can buy netting again a BM. We havd some blue kicking around. I think it is to keep debris contained. It's not expensive. Debris netting,: that's it. You could lay this across the joists, tucking down the sides and stapling. Then any wool material would stay put permanently.

The last one of these I did we discussed on here. Rather than microfitting rigid boards between wonky beams I used rock wool and a staple gun to take the insulation to the bottom of the joist level, leaving the underside exposed to help prevent damp. That is flexible enough to cover the variations simply. The rock wool was out of the roof, so the roof would be under 100mm and I got the full 300mm from the ECO programme because it was then uninsulated. I also used "snorkel" vents in one or two places to adjust the level of air inflow to be below the insulation (the airbricks were at ground level when I wanted them one course up to prevent water ingress). Then I also put celotex on top of the floor, with a click-fit Quickstep laminated floor on top of that. I (just) had the height to trim my doors. We were able to do all that without replacing the entire floor by my handyman raising one floorboard every couple of feet. I would give some thought as to which point you let Building Regs see it - I'm not sure what the current required standards are exactly, but for me it was quite tightly constrained. They were not happy with me doing the "fill it all with polystyrene beads" in a waterproof envelope thing. It's had tenants in it for nearly a decade now, and they all love it. There is a thread called "little brown bungalow" about it, and we discussed the floor setup over in the Boffin's corner, here: This was my buildup:

I don't think that's right. RdSAP is for older buildings with no drawings or tests. That isn't what is being discussed, unless I'm misinterpreting. from the briefest look at the method, it is for where drawings are not available. Even then there will be different efforts made. The £100 fee guy won't want to put any thought into it, but the thorough one can. With that logic a passivhaus wouldn't get a better sap than others.

That will work fine for the original SAP, but the rdSAP precludes them from looking at documents etc, just what they can see. No wonder it's rubbish.

I think we could easily argue against this being required improvement to regs. 1. Not 25% of the thermal envelope. 2. The concrete slab below is part of the thermal envelope, not this raised floor. It's a good idea to do it though.

I'd be very interested if you can spare the time and trauma. You could save many another person these issues. Was uours standing seam? Horrible to detail hence I never used it. We had steel standing seam as an option in brochures, because ig was expected, but it was easy to talk clients out of it. In my opinion, a lot of Architects propose it based on looks, and some perfect looking pictures in brochures. And zinc... traditional material that weathers to dull, and they think looks like on a church or Georgian roof. I.e looks nice in theory. But these are a skin onto board, and font oilcan: not spanning as standing seam.

Yes, you are reading correctly. You are 'renovating a thermal element' (adding or replacing a layer of something which gives on to the 'outside' - the sub-floor void being 'outside' for these purposes). You are unlikely to be picked up on it but yes, the obligation 'kicks in' because it is internal work - thus although it is only part of the ground floor, it is 100 percent *of the floor in the room you are looking at*. Doing it is good (Ecological Building Systems offer this Best Practice advice (https://www.ecologicalbuildingsystems.com/post/best-practice-approach-insulating-suspended-timber-floors?srsltid=AfmBOopVdS5DMUhiXLkltolwyE688i09EDVP0y4fzzJw_IZRi9jJ5hON) and UK gov't offers comprehensive advice too (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f05d211d3bf7f2be6e0217a/suspended-timber-floors-underfloor-insulation-best-practice.pdf)). To echo other comments 'fluff' is more likely to take up dimensional variations and not fall out.