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Who says roofing doesn't pay? The retired roofer of my acquaintance turns up in his sleek drop-head Merc. Smelling of new leather, a spec of dust here and there, he daintily alights from his car. Rather like a catwalk model, he removes his shades (driving shades you understand, not the roofing shades he uses), puts them in their case, and changes from his bordello-ready driving shoes to his work boots. He's brought his retired mate along fer 't 'craik - laak. A small piece of carpet ( a sample piece) is dropped on the dusty drive, and the bordello-creepers are neatly dropped, side by side, in the exact middle of the carpet . Whassa matter? I ask: Had a bad day? Wodjer mean? Shoes, I say, pointing at them. They are pointing North - South and not East - West like the other roofers who visit here. A big grin. The piss-taking had started before he got to the scaffold . The next hour was going to be fun. Tha's got sum rewfin called Noooooluck, I 'ere. Nulok, I counter. Ya wut? Nulok, Jim. He reaches up to his forehead ostensibly to push his hair back. In reality, he switched his hearing aid on. His mate does the same. Now that, that's a real compliment. They are both listening - or attempting to. More than I get from the average teenager. So I dig the bits and bobs out and he looks at them. Wha's 'at grewve fer then? (top of the image) Dunno, mate says I. Then a gentle sucking sound: the old fogey's sucking his teeth clean, I conclude. Wha's 'at nick fer then? (bottom of the tile) Dunno, mate says I. 'Eeeer, sin this? Wha? The back of the tile does indeed have the word Happiness emblazoned on its surface. You couldn't make it up could ya? I mean, just imagine being the tool maker for the mould in which the tiles are made...... Oh, by the way , the customer wants you to engrave the letters H A P P I N E S S on the back of the mould. Ya wot? Yew avin' a laugh? If it had been me I would have been sorely tempted to change it slightly: but in present company I'd better not write it down. Just ask yourself: how would a French person tend to pronounce Happiness? ..... Remembering that they don't pronounce the letter H. On to the battens They're not messin' abart are they? Why metal? Dunno says I. Tha' dun't knaw much duz ya....... He has a point. And I've delved round 'tinternet for hours as you will suspect. After they both left (of which more in the next post) I came up with this Installation_manualUSA.pdf Something new to get my DIY head into. The current Nulok videos are for advertising purpose, I think. As they left, because the roof of the car was down (they must both have had fond memories of when they were on the pull, I think) I noticed them both surreptitiously switching their hearing aids off. Bless them. Here's looking forward to their return. Installation_manualUSA.pdf

What about that walk on glazing ? ?

Update. The controller was "hanging" more often. Up until tonight I've been able to reset it then redo the time, date & settings. Came in just now to the downstairs heating off and couldn't reset the controller this time. Changed the electrolytic, new one apparently Panasonic brand. All appears to be working again. Thanks all, especially Jeremy.

Keep swapping between Bulb and Octopus. Would have to stay with an alternative for 12 months if you have previously been with Octopus

I sourced it from an eBay seller in Turkey. I've had a very quick look and can't find them now, which is a pity. They were selling whole pallet loads of Crema honed and polished travertine at a good price, but they wouldn't split a pallet load, so I ended up buying around 200, 400mm x 600mm tiles more than I needed (sold them to a neighbour). IIRC the price was pretty good, around £16/m². I remember that we paid nearly as much for adhesive, grout and sealant as we did for the travertine.

It's unlimited referrals with octopus. Jeremy I might use your link and switch. I'm pretty sure the price difference in energy will not swallow the referral up in a hurry. I plan to move soon anyway

It's weird. The numbers for the permeability of OSB are all over the place, it's the sort of thing people do PhD's on, literally. https://edavies.me.uk/2014/04/osb_vapour/ https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/is-oriented-strand-board-as-impermeable-as-they-say Nobody (house designer/BCO) blinked at my using 9mm OSB on the gables of my house (cladding vertical I-beams). OTOH, they were very bothered about using it on the roof. Not really sure, why, perhaps because the roof would have needed thicker OSB (18mm, I assume). OTOH, I see plenty of houses going up with T&G OSB on the roof. I'm confused.

Hello @Big Jimbo. Here is the relevant section of our Planning Application arguing why we should be given permission: Wyre Borough Council (our LPA) did not have a Local Plan at the the time. ' ... It is pertinent here to consider the reasons for approval in terms of how this materially affects the development’s design to be considered in the reserved matters application. ... Paragraph 49 of the NPPF requires that housing applications should be considered in the context of the presumption in favour of sustainable development. [...] as the Council is unable to identify a 5 year supply of deliverable housing sites, NPPF paragraph 49 states that, "relevant policies for the supply of housing should not be considered up-to-date if the Local Planning Authority cannot demonstrate a 5 year supply of deliverable housing sites." Development that assists in meeting housing needs is in accordance with the requisite policies of the NPPF and as such the Local Plan policies can, in this case, be given significant weight. In this instance, it is considered that the benefit of providing housing towards the 5 year supply can outweigh the lack of connectivity especially as the site is very close to the A6 and there roads are not particularly narrow. ... ' More simply put: if an LPA can't demonstrate a five year supply of housing (evidenced by a Local Plan) then permission should be given because we contend that our house will help with the housing supply. Here is the full documentation (called a Planning Statement) , and for the sake of completeness here's all the other online documentation. I am not quite sure about the extent to which a draft plan or a plan that is under review allows the same general argument to be made. My guess is that an unadopted plan, or one that is under review does not have the same status as a Local Plan. Best of luck.

Aren't dungeons meant to be damp?

To both a yes, I hope .

Nope it’s the Bat work.

So things have progressed a bit in-terms of the process, we had the pre-app site meeting, which wasn't all negative, and some flashes of positives. I was waiting on the response, but got tired of waiting and have got my architect working up the plans based on verbal comments, with the hope to submit mid to late April. I am hoping to have the pre-app response in that time similar to the verbal comments, and gently nudge the planning officer that we are going to submit and would love to have their comments before we do.

This is what I would do. Almost creating your skylight. This method will ensure no external ingress from the opening and minimise condensation formation.

There seems to a lot of inconsistency in the way addressing and council tax liability is handled, from one area to another. Here I managed to get on the address database (after a struggle) by paying a load of money to the council street naming team, then chasing up Royal Mail who initially put us on the database, then removed the address shortly later without telling us, so I had to get it put back on again Council tax was a nightmare. We had the building site broken into by a lady from the council one evening (she literally climbed over the fence, ignored all the warning signs and peered through the windows, wearing no PPE at all). She was caught on CCTV, and I only discovered who she was when we received a very stroppy letter from the council accusing me of trying to avoid paying council tax. I got a lot of useful advice from this forum's predecessor, called the council back and quoted the law to them, and asked them for the name of their employee as I wished to make a complaint to the HSE about her, for breach of site safety rules. At this point the council very swiftly backtracked, passed me up the chain to someone more senior, who tried to make out that it was a "mistake" (it wasn't, it's standard policy here, I later found out). The useful thing about this debacle was that I discovered that of the house doesn't have a potable water supply, then in law it cannot be classed as a rateable hereditament, and if it isn't a rateable hereditament than it cannot be classed as a habitable dwelling and cannot be put on the valuation list for council tax. Because the council had really angered me by their underhand actions, I chose to play hard ball, and delay connecting a tested, potable, water supply until we had virtually finished the build. I would have been quite happy to do this a year or so earlier, but the council's behaviour got my back up. I also removed the implied right of access to all council staff, their contractors, sub-contractors or agents, by sending them a recorded delivery letter giving notice of this and by fitting signs at the site entrance making it clear that entry by any council personnel would be by appointment only. To the credit of the council they never again tried to gain access to the site, it seems that they did actually take notice of the legal warning (surprised me a bit, given the way they's ignored health and safety legislation).

My site had, when I bought it, outline planning permission for two houses. At the time the council charge was about £80 for the first house and £40 for each additional house so I paid to register addresses for both. When I had an entrance, fence and postbox I then activated the address for the plot I'm actually building on. If/when I sell the other plot the new owner can change the name (should be free) and activate the other address. I think about half that price would be more reasonable but otherwise all OK. The house I'm renting in the mean time shares its address with the adjoining house (“everybody knows” which is which, etc). Unfortunately, it also shares its name with another house in the same village with a one letter difference in its postcode. Neither are officially registered under that name. When I tried to get this sorted out with the council they wanted to charge me £160 for a new registration on a house which predates the concept of “database” by at least two world wars. Despite my protests that it was just a correction to an obvious misregistration in the past they insisted that was the only way. Nope.

I would take issue with the last recommendation. In the summer when the weather is hot they are unlikely to use a south facing box and more likely to use a north facing box. I have only fitted them around the perimeter of woodland, not on houses.

I think she runs Windows '95 on an Intel 486 so is no longer a supported product. Will be interesting to see what happens to her in the next few months. Whatever the outcome, it's inevitable she'll be deposed as leader and I would't be surprised if she stood down as our MP. Not convinced the tories would still be a shoe-in, I think TIG would do quite well here as the LibDems traditionally come in second but were beaten by Labour in the last election. I will obviously be voting for Lord Buckethead and pledging my undying loyalty to his galatic empire.

She has voice reproduction circuitry but I'm not sure she has sound receiving capacity. Maybe with her next upgrade?

I can honestly say the only issue I had with British Bathrooms was a delay on one item I ordered that I had to chase. @Hecateh, pm me a copy of your order or similar and I'll email and give them a rocket saying I've recommended them to you and others and how embarrassing it is etc ref their poor service.

Fair enough, but my point was that the RHI wasn't a significant part of the decision making process, and any payment is considered a bonus. Focussing on pure economic grounds is fine for a theoretical debate, but as you know, practically, many other factors come in to play. In this neck of the woods, we're not exactly at the cutting edge of plumbing and heating technology (..they're still whingeing that they can't use lead anymore...), and I'm happy that I couldn't have got my house plumbed, an ashp system and all sanitary-ware installed in an appropriate timescale for significantly less than I paid. A 'non-MCS' install wasn't really even an option. That's not to say it can't be done, just that I couldn't do it, after factoring in all else. I have no doubt that my plumber added himself a nice bonus to the cost, but it appears that's standard practice for quotes for self-builders. Some you win, some you loose... Anyway, I offered-up my costs to the community on request, and hope that other folk can save a few quid on that!

We are just about to submit our plans with a flat roof. My archtechtural co were advising against it - we are green belt, 400 m from an SSSI and one of the few plots that is allowed to live on our plot. They were advising that it was unlikely to be passed because of those restrictions. Our reasons for a flat roof are similar apart from the fact that I don’t like flat roofs but like the look of solar panels less! Talking to a neighbour, they pointed out that another house had got PP down our road and used our current PP as one of the plus points. Our current PP is for a pitched roof so the ridge height is higher than their flat roof would be. The design and access statement talked a lot about visual impact and they had a lot of photos of the road scene. They got their PP by default in effect - the decision was outside of the timeframe so was classed as non-determination. They appealed and won. Hopefully that will allow our one through as well.

You need a set of box spanner’s like these.Plenty on Ebay,B&Q,Screwfix,Toolstation.

@ProDave stop trying to Nick my commission!