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Well, finally an update. We won the appeal. The inspector pretty much confirmed what we were saying all along about "overdevelopment" and visibility ("intent observer" wouldn't be able to compare the houses in the row due to vegetation) and the neighbour's houses not being the limit the plot can take. Happy days. Big thanks to everybody for the support and advice during this process. On the back of a recent post by @Big Jimbo and following a quick conversation with Mr Luxton at one of the shows I am seriously considering putting in another application that utilises space behind the existing attached garage to form a gym (ground floor only). I do want to bully the bastards who pretty much stole a year of our time - if I can. More questions to follow :-)

Update from BCO : Email below Thanks everyone, @Barney12 @JSHarris @Carrerahill "The installation details seems to suggest that the SVP can be provided from the inlet to remove the need to vent externally. The vent should be on the inlet side. An AAV internally will be acceptable internally".

What type of OSB is it? I have some offcuts of OSB3 that have been lying around in the garden for eight or nine years and have only just started to break up.

Bet she can’t type and drive though ?

Or if you prefer a section of square edge trim and a mastic bead where it meets the door. Something like (random google search) https://www.v4woodflooring.co.uk/product/square-edge-profile/ Personally I think that looks a little more professional than scotia which is a bit “DIY”

A scaffold tent is a shelter completely encompassing a build, or part of a build, to allow 'indoor' working whatever the weather. Recently a ran across a 16C barn inside one when I was taking the scenic route from Canterbury to Lewes to buy scaffolding. The project was a builder restoring his barn, after a Planning Process that had taken more than a decade.

I think the tide is turning @recoveringacademic University degrees losing a lot of credibility in my eyes. Young tradesman out there earning a grand a week with no debt and some students saddled with debt working in a supermarket as jobs market is saturated with degrees. Obviously the two extreme sides of coin but not heard many trades moaning lately it's rich pickings at present.

I’ve been tiling framing plastering for 40 years now It was a lot harder years back We used to lay a screed in the morning and go on it with. boards in the afternoon Neat cement No fancy flexible adhesives All plasters hand mixed with a rake A lot has changed

higher number, double, must be twice as good = higher price, obviously ?

Our beloved sparky has been doing the last few jobs and is finishing up where he started, in the garden kiosk which he installed on October 2014! It's probably not in the ideal location but has survived the whole build process of demolition, heavy plant, deliveries, landscaping and felling of a nearby tree. The kiosk now contains incoming mains supply, company fuse, meter, switched supply to house, garage and garden sockets (was temps to caravan and site office) main gate controls, driveway lighting, wall lighting and supply to secondary gate controls. Very tragically there is no room for a smart meter Seems a shame to put covers on the boxes and close the door on it! Might explore making it completely see through and light it from inside, like those funky gaming PCs ...

Hi I have designed my own home and the ONLY issue I keep coming back to is the size of 2 of the 3 bedrooms upstairs. I want to have myself/wife and our 2 kids in 3 rooms upstairs - keeping that as the sleeping area of the house. The footprint of this build is externally 12.5m x 9.2m (350mm external walls). Upstairs, rooflights provide the main source of light to the rooms on a 33 degree pitch. The ridge height is at 6.5m and that is the limit. So the overall size of both rooms is 3.65m x 4.0m. Sounds ok but a fair chunk of the 3.65m is a sloping roof. I don't want 'big' bedroom.. I just want enough. I also will have 2 No. 800mm wide rooflights in each room which give extra head height to across approximately 50% of the room width? Kids may have single beds but in our current house they are in doubles so I need to assume that they may want doubles in the new also. What do ye think?. Thanks Moggaman. RoomSize.pdf

Spent the last week floor tiling - still a bit left to do (need to get hold of more adhesive). When I get home I'm whacked - I'm sure you would get tiling fit eventually but respect for those who do it for a living. Grouting today had the sweat dripping off me. Perhaps we don't appreciate the trade boys and girls enough sometimes.

I am still finishing my immersion heater dump load controller and I then need to install my own export meter. Then I will have a measure of how much does get exported and how much we are actually managing to self use. I am sure batteries will some later but too expensive just now.

You are probably best just staying with SSE and switching with them to E7 or E10, They will change the meters for one dual rate meter. In the process your off peak loads will be connected to the off peak output, and everything else, including your present "cheap" 24/7 heating stuff, will be connected to the normal feed. Then you can switch suppler to anyone else offering E7 or E10

Those updated labels will not attach themselves every year ... ?

Yep . Its ok - I know exactly where to look for leaks .

Took a long time in the shower to get the motar stains out of the side of head,neck, shoulder and back. But it does learn you how to mix motar. Chimney copings where the worst lift. Usually 3 ladders to climb and by the time you got to the top of the last ladder the legs where a wobbly mess.

Buildhub scores AGAIN! ?

Bet she can spell "department"! ?

Also have a think if a matt well is something you want. You can use a square edge profile to create one. If you’re going to need an entrance mat then it’s far neater than something that you’ll continually trip over or that creeps across the floor!

Normally just scotia trim. Either to match the floor or skirting or in white upvc

Nah, just work @pocster style!

Completely agree. In fact I’d go as far as to say that the higher education system in this country is morally bankrupt.

I really like this show. Probably because of travel, they never do any for property/land in the highlands. The best bit is the choice of the music for each property/work being carried out.

Well done @oldkettle - good to see a result. Now to build it... If only one could build a papier mache model then use a pantograph.

BC here (Highlands) were happy with roof windows (top-hung Velux) as means of escape in my bedrooms. Ground floor (it's an A-frame) but at least shows that it's not, in principle, a no go. Remember that the primary size requirements for means-of-escape windows is not that somebody inside can climb out but that a fire fighter in breathing apparatus can climb in.

I've witnessed hours of water testing on roofs / facades with no leaks. Then it rains for real and it pisses in! That's the real test imo.

Fact is somewhere you need a vent, a vent and an AAV obviously both do quite different things in their own right, albeit a vent will do both - so make the BCO happy there is a vent somewhere and you should be fine. I think if you suggest to the BCO that you want to maintain the integrity of your roof, he will understand that and also respect that if anything, you are trying to make this building better which in his eyes should be a good thing. I suspect you would have more luck asking him if you can have a horizontal vent section (with a run on it obviously) exiting from the side of your house thus saving your roof or as @JSHarris says draw his attention to the treatment plant ventilation setup. Venting depends on many factors but what you are trying to vent is any possible hydrogen sulphides, ammonia, methane, carbon monoxide etc. build up from sections of pipe, if a gas can build up and get trapped then you have an issue. It seems they will often allow AAV only on short runs of soil that go directly to a manhole cover or vented stack, so say a toilet on the ground floor, it can be, from top down, AAV hidden in wall or above ceiling height, toilet connection, slow bend 90 outflow to manhole this section is un-vented but I think it is so short there is no risk?

Our planning specified total height (they have a thing about roof heights round here) and when we altered the roof design slightly found ourselves about 150mm above where we wanted, builder pointed out reducing the roof slope by a couple of degrees got over this, also they pointed out the planners had no way of measuring the total finished height anyway (no gables) and he had never been questioned about finished roof height in all his years building around here ?

The way this country treats its trades people is shameful. We don't even give them a proper training scheme - one that gives successful trainees parity of esteem with their university graduate colleagues. And you don't have to look far to see a country that does.

I ran my house design through PHPP with varying air tightness values from IIRC 0.2 to 2.0 and the difference in heat loss between 0.6 ACH and 1.0 ACH was very small.

Congratulations, make the bastards pay!! They have also cost us a year of our lives so far, and we are mid appeal now... Tick flippin' tock!!

On thing you may need to think about for the planning stage is the subsequent building regs. I think the bottom of one of those roof lights in a room need to be a max of 1.1m off the ground for build regs (I will need to check). Also it needs to be a minimum size for an escape path.

Got a similar height at one side of my eaves. 1200mm. Works well for a desk then also have bath along this wall as you propose. Seems to work fine but where you position your beds will be important and think about wardrobes

No idea ! Suspect neither work “ for me “ Its the ‘eco’ version whatever the F that means for a stud finder ?

Just stuck some magnets on a wall as an illustration. The big magnet has a hole in the centre, which is just the right size for a pencil (if you want to mark the wall). The smaller magnets are showing the heads of the screws found by the larger magnet. Took me maybe 30 seconds to do this, and most of that was spent finding the first stud (others are easier as you can guess roughly where they will be):

So, My tenants have blocked the toilet. Naturally although I look can I find a plunger ; of course not. So off I trot to the BM expecting the 'conventional' plunger. This is what I get!!!!

I lost faith in architects 15 years ago when building our first house. We had 2 architects come and talk to us. Both wanted in the order of £25K to act on our behalf, and these fees were based on a percentage of their estimated build cost. And they would not negotiate on the fees or scope of work that we wanted. We ended up getting a local building firm to build the shell and they did the drawings for £2K and the total build cost was roughly half what both architects had estimated. We did project manage ourselves and did a lot of the internal work ourselves. I get the impression if you just hand it to an architect and say "build me a house" you will end up paying substantially more than if you manage it yourself appointing trades as you need them.

No, you've definitely got a second free go. You've paid two fees you've got two free resubmissions

Hi, Been waiting to hear back from the planning inspector before i posted. Sadly decision dismissed. We started our journey back in Feb 2018 contacting an architect to come and have a look ant our large garden/shed/tennis court which has now turned back into a garden,own separate drive accessed via slip road,all road fronted,the site is outside settlement boundary by 150 meters.Our house is in a row of 4 detached houses but the nearest to boundary,the other end of row of houses is open country side. Topography survey first followed by architect drawing some plans up,then pre app meeting. Outside settlement boundary and not sustainable.There is spar shop,pub,restaurant,garage,hotel,garden center 800 meters away that is accessed by a pavement,bus stop outside the site and also a bus stop 800 meters away that run every hour,that will get you to newport town center,chepstow. Planning officer says buses to infrequent,planning inspector saying to intermittent. Contacted our local councilor,he came and had a look at the site,his thoughts were that site is not encroaching into open countryside but moving towards urbanization area. Got a planning consultant on board drew up planning statement and applied for planning permission. Refused not sustainable outside boundary.No objections neighbours,community council,water board,highways. Local councilor called to committee,but we lost by 1 vote. Appeal statement sent of to planning inspectorate also letter from our councilor pointing out the site is sustainable. Planning inspector refused/dismissed what ever you want to call it.Main issue is sustainability,there were a few other points that were taken from Planning Policy Wales. This has cost us £4500 and it feels though we have robbed. I would appreciate if anybody could give me guidance of what to do next. Regards Nick

Well I feel like Jeremy and Barney with the SA only mine is windows. So the replacement trim to replace the damaged arrived today. I have sent emails reminding them of the previous fiasco and to ensure it is packaged carefully. So it arrived (can you feel that this is not going to go well) and not only was it damaged but the wrong trim. They sent an anodised one which covers the sill section, which we already have and not the top trim. It measures approx 5.5 metres long by 150mm wide long and it was just bubble wrapped. It was not even strapped to a piece of wood to give it some support. This now means we still cannot finish the render due to this trim needing to be in place and god only knows how long it will be before we try for a third trim. We are now nearly at 18 months for our window install. Avoid Internorm at all costs.