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Morning I’ve been using this tool to put the taper back on the ends of any cut drainage pipe, works a treat. Little bit costly but has been used in anger all week and paid for itself already.

Easy fix there, just get a friend to apply as an objector, and then stand up and basically support your application. That way you get your 3 minutes to make your points...

@oldkettle we were in a very similar situation with errors stated in the planners refusal. A week before the Planning Committee hearing I hand delivered a document to each of the committee members outlining what I felt were errors and what we were trying to achieve with our build. At the hearing I spoke for three minutes reiterating what I had put in the document. The committee members overruled the Head of Planning and it was passed unanimously much to the annoyance of the Head of Planning who was furious. The planning department had concentrated so hard on refusing my application that they forgot to remove permitted development rights and allowed a balcony which originally they didn't want.

Just a scrap of ply, or whatever you have lying around!

No, the missus has a 1975 Mini Clubman.....

Sounds a very good option to me. In practice the accumulator will rarely get very cold, as when the house is occupied there will be a regular flow of water at around 8 deg C (normal mains water temp in most areas of the UK). The case you need to protect for is having a long cold spell whilst away on holiday and not using any water. I insulated the inside of our treatment plant shed, where the accumulators are, with 50mm of insulation, then added a 60 W tubular heater under the accumulators that is switched by a frost stat, so only comes on if the temperature inside the shed drops below 4 deg C. I don't think it's ever come on, as it takes a fair time for such a large volume of water to cool down.

Hi all - a few photos showing the house 95% plaster boarded and some plastering started. Just the cloakroom and plant room off the utility room to complete. Somewhat frustratingly, we will have to wait a full week before the plasterer returns, which holds up the decorating and second fix joinery. The ceilings for the first floor have had two layers of plaster boards fitted, which helps with sound proofing. Whilst this has been going on, the stone ,an and his labourer have really cracked on and finished the front of the house. The stone has been taken up to just above head height around the rest of the house. they just need to build up from there and to do the external chimney. The kitchen fitter came out to do final measurements and noted that the external waste pipe in the utility room was a bit snug to allow both the washing machine and tumble dryer to fit in, so has recommended a breakfast bar type work top which is 665mm as opposed to 600mm deep. This will allow sufficient room at the back for the appliances and removes the hassle of having to adjust the pipework / drainage. The next phase will see the plastering completed and the second fixes started. Outside I hope to see the house fully stoned and the chimney started. We'll see.

In fairness our washing machine is also a dryer (for half loads ) so will see how it goes.

Here is where the sunroom will go. Will post pic of completion

+1. If it's not bed n butter then expect them to come back up by themselves. No need for matting, don't waste your money. Make 100% sure you do not grout to the wall so there's available expansion in the whole tiled area ?

Tbh I think the starrett cutter would be stronger with two blades mounted inside.

Looking at mine , I think Stanley blades are not needed it doesn’t cut and give off an apple peel type sliver it sort of scrapes it off i think a piece of stainless 2-3 mm thick sticking through the side so the pipe is a tight fit against the cutter i think Stanley blades will be to brittle

I'd think a stanley blade is too thin. The back edge of it, or the back of an old jigsaw/hacksaw blade maybe? You're using it as a scraper after all.

Tax my Aga! You can jolly well bugger orf! What is an Aga?

Yes for water Don’t forget to back butter your floor tiles

The purpose of the tumble dryer, is not to "dry" things, but make them "fluffy" towels and socks in particular. Though it also does save on ironing. The TD only gets used for the bare minimum time. Stuff comes out still damp and goes on the airer to finish drying, but as long as it has had some tine in the infernal machine, it passes the fluffyness test.

We asked one of our parish councillors who wasn't on the Planning Committee to support our application and he spoke in our favour at the hearing. Nobody ever objected to our application except the Planning Department. We obtained the names and addresses of the Planning Committee from the council website and took the document to their home addresses during the day and put them through the letterbox. The committee made a site visit and we had a presentation showing all the drawings and a scale model. We also marked out with spray paint on the ground the footprint of the proposed building. We were not allowed to speak to any of the committee members but the planners had a representative from another area supporting their claims. We also had support at the site meeting from the Parish Council. We didn't previously know any of the committee members or people at the site meeting.

They don't mark but with the sun shining on them you can see every minute piece of dirt. Reckon mine won't see this date next year!!

In my experience, absolutely anything goes when it comes to planning committee meetings. I've seen some outrageous behaviour, one case where I accidentally overheard a developer stating quite clearly that he'd "paid a bung" to one or more of the committee members (in the presence of a local journalist, who was as gobsmacked as me), I've seen applicants rig up an array of supporters speaking from pre-prepared scripts, people openly lie in front of the committee in order to try and make their point, you name it, it goes on. I'd have no reservations at all in getting someone to stand and speak. If any member of the public registers an interest in expressing their view at a planning committee meeting then I believe that automatically gives the applicant a right to reply.

No harm in that I guess, or someone else. She could be an objector and then when asked to speak she could say she objects to the permission being refused . Or something inconsequential that would have no little or no bearing on the decision like noise whilst the work is going on.

Glad you called it a sunroom, it’s what I meant (as I hate usual conservatories). Thanks for that Declan.

My porcelain tiles in my sunroom really absorb the heat. They are 600*600 and the area surrounding the door and big window gets pretty warm if the sun is shining on it all day. I just used a flexible adhesive to glue them down and 4 years later they haven't moved yet.

Too much ironing needed for me with that method . Hate ironing so the tumble dryer rules

Could double up as a hard hat when she does miss it.

Now that you have said it is some sort of metal sheet roof I wood say that a ventilation gap on the cold side is essential. Well ventilated a VCL is a backup which I would install but is possibly not necessary. The boards in option two will have a higher vapour resistance than the between joist fill and will be les likely to need a VCL than option one where the rockwool batts will have a nominally higher vapour resistance than the joist fill but still a very low value. In option one the rockwool batts are not strong enough to take the external roof and you would require battens fixed to the joists to carry it. Here is the BBA cert for a metal sheet roof, it has a ventilation gap and an optional VCL, page 7. BBA Certificate for Colorcoat Urban Roof panel.pdf

Sorry to put a spanner in the works. It does seem that the planner has made some mistakes, but if you are going to accuse him of errors, it is best to be certain. 1. I am not certain but I would think that the height of the house should be measured from the ground, not the GFL which is above ground due to the steps up. Is the ridge height not 9.1m above ground? 2. I don't think it is unreaosonable to state that the depth of the house is 13.25m if that is the depth of half the house. From the side the longest depth of the house will define how deep the house looks. Your arguments seem correct on the other stuff.

It's all about area and the scale of movement though. The coefficient of linear thermal expansion for concrete is around 0.014mm per metre per deg C. So a 5m wide room would move around 0.07mm per deg C change in temperature. The range of temperature that our UFH heated slab sees across our widest room (about 5m) is at most 5 deg C, and that's the variation from floor cooling (18 deg C) to maximum floor heating (23 deg C). So our kitchen/diner floor moves about 0.35mm worst case, across it's entire longest dimension. The large format travertine we've laid is 400mm wide on that axis, so across each 400mm wide tile the worst case movement, ignoring the coefficient of linear thermal expansion of the travertine, is going to be 0.028mm. To give a sense of proportion, a human hair is around 0.025mm, so we're talking about that much absolute maximum relative movement, IF the travertine has zero coefficient of linear thermal expansion. Flexible tile adhesive has a maximum allowable "give" in shear of around 0.2mm to 0.4mm per metre, so around 0.08mm to 0.16mm across a 400mm wide tile, far more than enough to take up the relative movement 0.08mm per metre per deg C IF the tile had a zero coefficient of linear thermal expansion. However, no tiles have a coefficient of thermal expansion that's zero, they range from around 0.004mm per metre per deg C for porcelain to about 0.008mm per metre per deg C for travertine. Taking our travertine as an example, the actual differential movement is given by the difference between the two coefficients of thermal expansion. In our case, for the 5m long run of travertine, with 400mm wide tiles, the absolute maximum relative movement, between the floor being on maximum cooling to being on maximum heating will be about 0.016mm per tile, massively within the ability of the adhesive to flex, and far too small an amount to cause a crack.

Yes they could grant you PP for the front and restrict permitted development rights as part of that PP meaning you may not be able to do the back under permitted development rights. They may not do that of course but worth considering that as a possibility and asking a planning consultant or similar how likely that might be if you use that as an argument for explaining why they may as well approve this current submission.

I would write to the planning officer copy the chairman of the planning committee pointing out the errors (Don't call them lies) in the planning officers report. Wherever possible compare your house to those around it already approved. Our application was helped by having a street scene drawing that showed our house and the buildings either side as viewed from the road. Two versions, one with trees and one without.

There's the answer chaps, wait three years before tiling!

+1 I agree completely with @nod All new concrete and screed will shrink and crack to some extent, even if it has reinforcing mesh. If you go into any large retail shed with an exposed concrete floor such as B&Q or Costco you will see that the floor has some kind of movement joint at approx 6 metre intervals in both directions. If there’s no designed movement joint then you’ll see a ragged crack (or sometimes both!) Older concrete and screed floors like @Onoffwill have finished with any shrinkage movement so anything you put on top should be okay if there’s no existing cracks.

Virtually all our tiling jobs are specified for crack matting with UFH Your taking a chance without it Also you can get away with less movement joints Most screeds and Slabs move and crack regardless of UFH If the screed moves it will at the very least crack the grout It’s personal choice I’ve just been out to a newly built house with a hairline crack across the large kitchen floor The builder is saying the tiler gave him no guidance Tilers saying builder said keep the price down In any case the tile will have to come up

No. Deadly serious. Councils don't like appeals so I would want them to know for sure that I would take it to appeal if it was refused. They would be hoping if it was refused you would be resubmitting plans for something smaller. I would want to remove that doubt.

And make the closing sentence of your 3 minute presentation "I therefore fail to see how this is over development or against any planning policy, so if it is refused I will take it to appeal."

I'd prefer a sinner...

I've never been to any sort of appeal so I might be talking nonsense but surely someone will verbally speak against your proposal even if it's someone from the council? Then if you only get 3 minutes you need to work it through as a prepared presentation, and practice it and time it to get it word perfect. I would provide a Powerpoint presentation (or similar) to hand out and use that as the basis of your presentation. I would include diagrams to easily illustrate the points made, and also explain the 'inaccuracies' in the planners' document. Whether that's allowed or not I'm not sure but often a picture speaks a thousand words to illustrate the point you are trying to make.

£24 e bay.

I do mine with the cordless angle grinder,. That's a prettier result though!

That's one of the places where just providing bills falls down - humans have a strong tendency to take improved efficiency as comfort, rather than cost savings. If the sort of thermal comfort acceptable in the 1950s were applied to a Passivhaus, they really wouldn't need any heating system at all.

No more complicated than this. My cutter has the hose attachment at the side, but I inadvertently turned the pressure up to high one day and blew a hole in the pipe. Waiting for a new one to turn up. v

Looking wonderful!

Very nice, love the stone and slate.

I used to have a resin kit when I was a kid. I had all sorts of moulds for it but the challenge was what to embed in it. I used to be delighted when one of the tropical fish died so that it could be immortalised in a resin paperweight or similar

Love it

I think you should make a lava stone one:

The way I view it is if you do a narrow trench and put one on top of the other, what if you need to work on the lower one i would do a wider trench with separation between them.

Thank GOD I am not...... its a fully unprotected swamp........ just don’t tell the powers at be how much wildlife habitat I have created....its amazing, the increase in flora and fauna you get when you get the sheep off the ground, fence it in and plant thousand of trees and flowers. Six years from barren farmland to a flourishing oasis and I am only just getting started.

Heat pumps do seem to throw up some problems. I found the documentation for my (LG) unit appalling and some basic but vital information missing and it took many emails to customer support to finally get it working. Even then I had to diagnose and fix what I believe is a design fault to get it to work reliably. I feel there is some way to go in terms of product development, documentation and support before these will be as universally accepted and usable as a humble boiler. Which is a shame as when set up properly they are very good.

The accumulators only have a single connection on the bottom, so normally have a tee on so that incoming water comes in one side and outgoing goes out the other side, with the accumulator connection coming off the top of the tee. For mains pressure boosting you fit a non-return valve (NRV) on the incoming side, so that the peak pressure gets stored in the accumulator. When connecting two (or more) together, you just run the "outlet" from one to the "inlet" to the next and they effectively work in parallel. The dimensions vary a bit, but the 300 litre ones I have are 630mm in diameter and 1400mm high. IIRC, they were around £300 each. The 500 litre one would have been fine for me, but was too big in diameter to fit in the shed I'd already built. IIRC the 500 litre one was close to being 800mm in diameter, and I only had around 700mm of room to spare inside the shed.

There seems very little evidence to support those assertions. Take the matter of costs. Several long standing and prominent members here are building on a very low budget, some literally doing as I had to do for the final three years and only do work after saving from earnings (in my case pension) in order to be able to pay to do the next bit. We have few members who have just paid for a turn-key package (only one that I can think of from the top of my head) and most fall somewhere between doing all the work themselves and project managing plus doing some work themselves. I think you're making broad generalisations without solid base data - take a look at the members of this forum that are actively building and see if their builds reflect your assertions.