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@PeterW An update for those who have given me such great advice and support... Thank you!

Been a bit less hectic this week. One team working on the roof. Scaffold went up Monday Hopefully will be felted and battened tomorrow

Big hole ready for tomorrow's Clearfox installation

Councils are funny when it comes to boundaries and "zones" and it's not unusual for them to ignore the actual boundary of something such as an SPA and include the whole of any property in the exclusion. We had friends who built a garage / workshop in their back garden (not in Conservation zone) and found that the updated GIS plan on the council website had included it - the definitive conservation map and the order were correct but it's easy to see how these things start to blur. How will your new plots be accessed ..? May be worth fencing it off and sorting that now so when you apply for planning it's for an address unrelated to your church to distinguish the two areas. Did Natural England comment on your conversion planning application ..? If so that should still be on file and can be referenced.

Looking good @Dee...!

Sorry, okay I won't say we've got them in all the bathrooms then.

You said you wouldn't tell!!

MBC Timber Frame have a lot of fans on here.

I don't have the labour broken out separately for skimming our place, but I know that the two guys took two 2 weeks (10 working days) to do the whole job, boarding and skimming. Our job was a bit awkward, because of the need to work up on the platform in the hall and the whole first floor ceiling (the ceilings up there are around 3.7m high). Labour was £3200 for the whole job, and skimming took around 5 days (10 man-days). Filling and sanding joints would have probably taken around a day, so it's reasonable to guess that skimming added around 8 man-days of labour to the whole job. IIRC, the total internal wall and ceiling area was around 480m2, which makes the labour cost for skimming around £2.70/m2. I can't remember the cost of the plaster, but it wasn't massive. Our skim is around 3mm thick.

I only open my mouth to change feet

Virtually had a new washing machine (Hotpoint) yesterday all under the service contract. It had that many parts! Well pleased we kept that up. Still, if the missus will insist on buying shoite!

Sorry to go "off piste" but what's that wall finish? Looks very sharp. P.S. Consider entering your manifolds into the Turner Prize. Its one up on the 'Unmade bed'

@divorcingjack I think your panicking over a quite insignificant item here. For starters, the cupboards / units have kick space so are immediately isolated from the floor, ( by the legs of the unit ), so the only 'worry' is over the bin. My bin, out of circumstance, is next to the kitchen rad, literally 70mm away from it. As I bought a good quality Curver bin with a good swing lid I don't ever smell any guffs from it unless the kids have wedged something in there and the lid won't shut. Bearing in mind that food waste is separated now ( at least in Wales ) so what exactly is going to stink? Relax, and move on to worrying about how expensive a floor tile your missus will take a shine to

This depends on the temperature differential and the amount of heat the UFH is delivering. This house is like mine, same builder, same sort of heating requirement per m². There's one place on the floor surface where I can spot with a thermal camera or IR thermometer that the temperature is around 1/2 to 1 deg C warmer when the heating is on, and that's in the doorway to the utility room, where all the UFH pipes run through to the rest of the house. You can't tell by walking on the floor in bare feet that this area is any warmer at all. There is a significant difference between an UFH heating system like this that is delivering around 5 to 10 W/m² and a typical UFH heating system that may be delivering 50 W/m² or more.

No curtains on the window either :-)

The top of our hall ceiling is around 6m above the floor and the plasterers did a good job of boarding and skimming that OK. I bought a scaffold tower for that job and a few others, and sold it to the plasterers a few weeks later. It was a lot cheaper to buy a tower and sell it for half price a few months later than it was to hire one for the time needed.

I had Bono digging my shed footings last year. He'll do anything for £30 and two pints of Guinness

How did you get Bono to get off his arse and do some work?

Bloody hell....the plasterers are going to love you. What's the ceiling height?!? Or is that guy actually 8 years old?

Think that is easy to fix by a roofer inserting a something something membrane under the bottom 2ft or so. Just had that done on a 40 year old roof. F

@Dee you can cut tiles to fit with a decent grinder - may look better

Special Protection Area related to the EU Birds Directive. As ever the implementation here seems extremely gold-plated. The theory is that if you build within X kilometres of a sufficiently important population of certain bird species, your new development will prevent them feeding in the area (especially if they are shy birds such as woodlarks). Close to the SPA there is a presumption against development, and further away you are required to buy them alternative feeding grounds. Typically things are not built within 400m of the SPA, and anything proposed within 4 miles or so is difficult and needs to argue and mitigate. It is easier for smaller developments. In the area of this Planning App the mitigation cost is approx £7-8k in the form of a planning payment if you build a 3 bedroom house. The doc for the area of this thread is here: https://www.hart.gov.uk/sites/default/files/4_The_Council/Policies_and_published_documents/Planning_policy/Interim_Avoidance_Strategy_for_TBHSPA - November_2010.pdf If you are potentially affected, you have to have a statement in your Planning App saying that you have thought about it. It can be another tool in the NIMBY toolbox. Ferdinand

IMO you need advice from an experienced local who knows the Council policies better than the Council do. My usual suggestion is either the most experienced qualified person at an independent Estate Agency or planning consultancy (10 years local experience) or someone who has won several similar PPs locally. You can do things ranging from an informal conversation for 10 minutes in the shop to half a day or a day of their time with a short report. Key things are that you have a one page brief outlining your questions and requirements for their work. My suggestion is to pay as you will then engage formal professional confidentiality etc. You will be into a quality specific design (depending on what "local listing" means and what their criteria are), potentially several expert reports (eg prove it is not in the SPA belt, archie the -ologost for graves and history, traffic etc). Could easily be 5k-10k or perhaps a lot more before you get (or are refused) PP. I would also want funding in place for an Appeal, as you could be affected by local politics. You need to be able to afford to lose this sum. "Curtiledge of a listed dwelling" is - I suspect rather naughty / misleading if it is only a 'noted' building in the Council records not the EH listing database. That looks like a locally wished limitation, which will be less authoritative. Check it. I would say consider bungalows as a possibility too, and remember that you need to preserve the amenity of the church. On finance, you may be able to fund against the plot once you have PP, or reach a deal with a developer/builder to build both / you keep one. Alternatively, given probable price increases over 5 years, equity release and a bigger mortgage on your existing property might be the way to fund it (5 year fix?). I spent a couple of hours reading about the Thames SPA once, and the extra (3k?) charges to be visited on eg PPs in a chunk of Farnham. The fascinatingly awful thing was that it seems to take far less evidence to create an SPA than would justify the extra imposed costs to build a house there afterwards. I seem to recall a tiny population of woodlarks that had not actually been counted for quite a few years yet a huge piece of territory was blighted on that basis. I would love to have an update. Ferdinand

yes obviously, this thread is only about plain tiles.

What's an SPA exclusion zone?

I don't know is the straight answer. But here's what you can do Network Read widely Buy expert local advice On BH there is a wealth of experience, read the Planning section. Then review your LPA planning website; you appear to have started that process. Find out who the best local planning adviser is - on the basis of both evidence and recommendation. There is no substitute for legwork and hours of reading. '....heavy justif[cation]...' can be read as a hint as well as a caution. Local expert advice will help most Oh, welcome, by the way! Ian

Only really applies to older rosemary or commons - onterlocking modern tiles don't need the bottom course.

Yes, there should be a course of eaves tiles (not visible) and ideally felt support tray too

Here is the roofing bible I have been working with.. seems comprehensive but of course I don't know what I don't know! https://www.fixmyroof.co.uk/videos-and-guides/pitched-roof/slate-a-roof/#

Just realised why ALL our felt is rotten along the bottom and in turn the tops of the wodden facias thanks to this. Lack of double row/double cover/starter course!

Jesus peter, that would be acceptable on the living room wall ! . I'm not a JG fan by any distance, but you've made them look good here mate . Cracking job.

Thanks Nick, makes perfect sense now. So a shorter joint with some added support, rather than a long joint that lines us with the battens. It will be easier to handle two square bits as well, rather than two long skinny ones. (Confession time- I already broke one board yesterday when I thought I could balance it on my head and carry it up a stepladder. Note to self, no you cannot).

The chances are it's a standard bearing, so with luck you may be able to get one from someone like Bearing Boys: https://www.bearingboys.co.uk/ (no affiliation, but they've always provided great service when I've used them). Usually the bearing will have the size code marked on it, together with the code for the type of shield/seal. For example, sat on my desk in front of me I have a box of 6000-2Z bearings, which are 26mm OD, 10mm ID, 8mm thick, with double shields. If you can read a number like this on the bearing face, then with luck you may be able to find a replacement fairly easily.