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Further update on our VAT reclaim journey... HMRC have written to us (actual letter, not email) querying four invoices, covering about £3k VAT. The invoices are for our lights and our flooring tiles (two invoices for each: deposit and balance). They are asking for more information because the invoices don't specify the goods supplied. They have asked for paper copies of the four invoices, and supporting evidence from the suppliers detailing what the invoices cover, so I have sent the matching orders for each. The good news is that they said they will pay the vast majority and just hold back the the £3k for these invoices. And the day I got the letter the money arrived in our account. So, quite happy with that - 14 weeks or so from claim to payment of the bulk of the claim.

Are Lindab's assumptions the same as yours? (Page 4) '...Lindab has used the Swedish standard with a rainfall volume of 0.013 l/sqm...' and further '... It is difficult to generalise when it comes to the design and dimensioning of roof drainage, even though there are industry standards to rely on. In recent years, we have seen that rain volumes increase in certain rainy periods and, above all, that the intensity of rain showers has increased both in terms of time and quantity. Adjacent topography, other buildings and the building’s design can also influence the needs of the building in question. Combined, these factors mean that a property owner should - in addition to industry requirements - take into account the building’s needs and vulnerability...' When it rains in BC, man does it it rain. Might you have generalised rainfall reference tables for your area?

Can't you use a hygrometer (pyrex jug and digital scales)? Find out the density at the correct ratio and then compare your mix.

In a non square room it took a while to decide what straight edge to start from 😀 A lot of measuring and marking to get a "centre" line, then choosing which corner should be on that line. Tips: Dry run fitting the pieces together - you may find there is one way that works better/easier for you. A centre of the room line is not necessarily the correct thing to do as you may end up with tiny pieces to fit in at the edges. Lay out 10 to 20 "rows" but only two pieces wide (hope that makes sense) to start with, then line up that "patch" of planks on your marked line, and fix it in place (glue, or several screws around the edges that you'll later take out as you add more pieces). HTH To answer some other points above, I only glued the tiny pieces at the edges so they didn't move out of place. The windows face WSW so only get late afternoon sun. Even with LVT, the angle can wander a little, but I guess not as bad as wood parquet. And yes @Super_Paulie, the struggle was real 😀

They won't be engineers, just technicians with BTEC or C&G qualification. Look up the qualification and then ask around for people with the right certificate.

I'm feeling too lazy to try and draw this. But if you made the master 3m wide then you would have room to rotate the wardrobes 90 degrees so the doors face the bed. That would give you room to expand the bathroom. I think overall that gives much better proportions to the master suite. I'd also be tempted to switch the second bathroom/bedroom. That would mean the bulk of plumbing could be centralised. Ideally, I'd want the hot water tank to be co-located there to minimise pipe runs for hot water. The current location for the plant room is ideal for the ashp but not much else. A more central location would make various runs easier but I'd guess that central space is more valuable as is. I think @Square Feet mentioned some reasons not to do this earlier. I'm not sure either way, there might be a 3rd option. However, will point out that by doing as you propose there is the potential for the 'corridor' from the front door to act as space around the dining table (double duty) that might allow room for the bathroom/study given the expansion of the master.

Without reworking the whole design, the main change I'd make is switching the kitchen to the other side of the room, allowing a larger living room by cutting down on the 'virtual corridor' space on the original: I'd probably use a little of that space gained to make the main bedroom suite a little wider.

I think there are two main reasons for the location as close to meter as possible. 1. If you are doing work (like moving a consumer unit) then you might be changing all the wiring all the way back to the meter so that's where you need the isolator 2. If you need to isolate a fault then you need to be able to isolate as much cabling as possible (too many instances of people drilling through a cable between the meter and the CU (there is a short distance limit before you need armoured cable but still). New rules mean battery systems will need an external, accessible, fire switch if not now then soon (and this one has to be visible from a distance). That means there will be another external switch that a nefarious person could flip. Often these switches are fitted by default when a meter upgrade is done so it's not just new builds. Many electricians will recommend getting the DNO to fit one vs paying the DNO to come isolate the system for an electrical project as it's easier and less disruption (possibly less cost) to do it that way. They do but I think there is still a periodic physical inspection. But yes, the need for external meters is less now, but that's not the reason for an external isolator I think external connection points are here to stay.

Since Grenfell the demand for fire safety work has skyrocketed and AFAIK there is a huge shortage of qualified people to do it. Bit of a shit situation all round. Sorry, I know that doesn't really help solve your problem.

On the verge of taking this thread off topic - so I'll do one final reply and let it rest. I'm not arguing against why it's needed but the fact remains that it's location is not optimum for the customers. It may be for DNO. I extensively argued this with UKPN, my electrician and main contractor to understand why and the final response was - just because we say so!! I am having a full battery backup system for the house, the alarm system comes with its own battery, the cameras will be served by both the rack mounted UPS and then a whole home battery backup system. But these are measures I put in and shouldn't really be part of the conversation. The onus is entirely on new builds to comply to this regulation. For my existing 1930s house - the meters are all under the stairs in a cupboard which is not accessible and that provision has worked miraculously for almost ~100 years. The final puzzling piece of the equation was that we already have smart meters - so what is the need for any engineer to come around and take readings anyway? Isn't the whole point of a smart meter to send these automatically/periodically?

Yes, and we're struggling to get a response from his go-to firm as well (and as a bonus they're likely to very expensive if we ever get a quote through)

Have you asked your PD?

My timber frame project needs a fire engineer for a couple of items: 1. Timber frame fire mitigation report, as the building is near another property. 2. Assistance ensuring an open plan layout with inner rooms can comply with building regs. I've was speaking with a few well established firms, but recently I'm having an awful time getting anyone to actually provide a quote -- So far I'm waiting 3-4 weeks to get a response to emails, which makes me worry that even if I get quotes through, the work won't actually get done during my lifetime. Can anyone recommend fire engineering firms for this sort of work who might not be useless at communicating?

Here's a link to a vid about Old Holloway for anyone who might be interested.

I think so - especially if I can get the level of the decking to match the flooring inside so that it all seems to the eye to flow on outwards.

Of course. For some reason I missed/forgot that! Cool. A challenge indeed but if you are up for it then they will no doubt look great!

I'd love your input @ETC if you are still around.....

Ok, I will look at shifting the bedrooms to the right to steal a wee bit of space off the kitchen and make Bedroom 1 a bit wider. Yes the window in the centre of the bedroom gable wall was intentional to allow sight lines and light to flow through the coridoor. I will watch some Noah Daniel this weekend - thanks for the tip. There is a kind of lobby in that there's two porches - the open one outside (ie just a roof to keep the rain off) and the inner one. So anyone at the door will come to the outer porch and wait for me to open the two doors to speak to them. They will only see into the closed porch unless I put in a glass door between the living room and closed porch. The windows I am hoping to get from Green Doors who sell second hand or order-error windows and doors. They are good quality ie Dan Wood 3G but much lower prices. The difficulty with this is that they need bought at the beginning and the house built around them as I can't guarantee supply of the sizes I need. But they are cheap. It's also challenging to get enough matching windows/doors in one go of the kind I need but I could get some made up to match and the total bill would still be a lot less. I have a friend who self built and he put floor to ceiling narrow windows in his place. I absolutely love them. Gus has warned me that they aren't great from a structural perspective, but I do think they are worth the trouble. The connection to the outside they offer is fantastic. This architect's house uses them to great effect. The elevations were done for me by my son and I can see that he hasn't put the kitchen window in as a long thin horizontal one, but has shown it floor-to-ceiling which is wrong. Yes I will do a plot sketch. That's something I would separately like help with as I am a bit lost as to where best to place the garage etc. Many thanks

I dismantled our old 1920s, stick built, timber frame bungalow after we had moved into the new build. Building Control weren't interested, it took us a couple of weeks to do it, after we had had the asbestos removed. We recycled virtually all of it, and it only cost us the price of hiring a concrete crusher for a while. We also took down a couple of single garages, one block built and the other a concrete panel construction. A nearby similar bungalow to ours was knocked down by a local farmer using a telehandler and removed to be burnt at the farm. It took them less than a morning, but I preferred our way of doing it.

Any alarm system worth it's salt has a backup battery to avoid that situation. Plenty of the modern cameras can be got with batteries too, or if powered by POE you get a small UPS for the POE switch. You are more likely to suffer a power cut than someone intentionally switching off the power for nefarious reasons so having battery backup for some vital things is the logical thing to do if this is a concern even if you don't have the switch. We've had exterior water and gas shut off valves for a very long time. It's an historical quirk that it's only recently become standard to have an electrical isolator (though some meters have had a built in isolation method for a while, though maybe not as obvious to the observer). If you really want to shut yourself off then put up walls and gates around the property. Maybe you are supposed to enable accessibility by the DNO at all times but they are very unlikely to do anything about it if they visit and find a locked gate (other than ring the bell to gain access).

Any probability which is non zero is too high and an accident waiting to happen (at least in my paranoid mind!) The outcome here is that someone could walk up to the side of the house, cut power to all alarms and cameras and proceed to rob us at leisure? I don't understand what is lost by putting the breaker inside the house - behind a layer of security. You still turn it off before doing anything to the CU?

WE used H&H lightweight for the U values, but they can be brittle, we have one break when drilling into to put in window frame (luckily temp one) and had to replace it. Anywhere that we are likely to hang things or need extra strength such as above windows and under the roof we use heavy blocks. So, before you proceed do check about this. WE are doing block / block 150mm cavity with insulation batts and this meets building regs.

Yes they could but what's the chances of that? Being able to shut off the supply to the consumer unit is a great advantage. Saves an electrician having to call out the DNO (and the charges) if they need to do something big to the consumer unit.

As ProDave pointed out, the way ours was installed was also at an angle This is the finished article after the electrician completed the connection to the consumer unit inside the house What I find the most bizarre is that we're supposed to leave that box accessible and not behind any gates. Anyone could potentially walk up with a 50p key to open the box and cut power to the whole house by tripping the breaker? I asked repeatedly why the breaker would not be inside - next to the CU but it's the requirement as per BC and UKPN as well?!

I think it's just a badly written 2 - looks to be 0.23Ω to me?