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As usual it feels like progress has been glacial. It probably hasn't but most of the jobs this month aren't exactly visible. The first job was to construct a cabinet for the switch fuses and electric meter since the old back-to-back meter boxes had degraded to the point of uselessness. This of course displaced the drainage installation activity for a while. I did make some progress here too but we are nothing like finished yet as another tonne of gravel disappears into the ground... Casting a small reinforced concrete ring beam. The ducts for house and garage SWA in the centre. It turns out that making "model" buildings is a bit of fun. Construction of the timber frame for the meter cupboard, now known as the Woodlands Folly. All materials were offcuts from the house. Meter cabinet installed and beginning to fix the cladding. Again, everything is from house offcuts including the slate roof.The meter will be accessile from near the road - covid safe meters might catch on! Almost finished folly. UPVC soffit and fascia were found in a pile in the woodland during the summer chainsawing work! The inside is lined with floorboards since even I am finding it difficult to burn them. Switch fuse units have been fitted to test sizing ready for connection. One for the house to be connected immediately and one for the garage that can wait for the time being. In the fullness of time a consumer unit will be fitted to the back wall so there is accessible power in the folly for lights and car charging. Nothing like test fitting a consumer unit in a wall that isn't really there... It's a recessed BG unit fed with SWA from the folly. The "wall" can't be installed properly as yet because screeding the floor is one of those little covid/brexit (delete as appropriate) difficulties in the supply chain along with blue facing bricks. But at least I get to have something to look at even if it doesn't do a great deal. I installed two 2.4m earth rods since there's no PME supply to site and it isn't likely either. The earth test gave 2.7 ohms impedance so well within requirements. At least the PIR is all fitted, even around all the tricky areas with ducts through the floor. I am considering decomissioning the death saw although it seems a friend would like it to make insulation strips for his roof trusses. Meanwhile, the same friend wanted somewhere to practice drone flying. This was something I was happy to assist with! These are a couple of stills from a flight showing my extremely untidy site. One day I will have the drains covered up and the treatment plant located in the ground! And maybe further in the future I can have a garage too! But the roof still looks good. Now we get on to some very good news. After nearly 9 months of waiting, the arch windows have arrived! First the frames. They even fit in the holes! And then a week later the glass. I now have a little problem of getting some large 50kg glass semi-circles into the attic without a pair of staircases or scaffolding. This is going to be interesting and may involve heavy plant. What could go wrong??? Finally this month it became urgent to get the solar panels doing something more useful than just keeping the rain out. (My connection offer was due to expire!) So I fitted the inverter in the attic on the first piece of house to be boarded. The DC wires still need clips and some bits are decidedly temporary solutions but all of it passed witness testing so it is good to start generating. Another 6kW of solar on the grid just in time for winter.

Dont do it, I did an extension at 2.6 m deep, it is the most ridiculous and dangerous thing going. Plus the cost of removing all the spoil. Get it piled, minimum mess, just right the cheque out and move on to the next bit. Now is not the time to be quibbling over 3 grand. You will spend £35-40 grand by the time you are up to dpc. It’s just what it is. Don’t even consider doing it in strip foundation.

Dug out my old EITB drawings from when I was an apprentice. I made a centre finder and V blocks back then amongst many other things. Gave the drawings to No.1 son and he re-did them on Fusion. Now printing the centre finder for my mate John.

See my new thread on nail size for fixing roofing battens. Would be interested in your opinion.

Trouble with Graven Hill is that: - they are responsible for the foundation design and indemnity, or their counterpart being Waterman Ltd - no deviation is therefore allowed from what’s drawn - neighbouring plots are dug @ 2.5m deep, but only two storey. Ours is three - ground is indeed made up Plots down the road are built on piles, but I would imagine much deeper than the 27no @ 8m as proposed by the independent structural engineer based on the soil survey on site

Earlier I wrote.. I forgot to mention that enforcement action is suspended when you submit a planning application. So one option is to wait and see what happens. Meanwhile prepare a retrospective Planning Application so its ready to file if they actually initiate Enforcement action. If they haven't issued enforcement action within 4 years from completion you can apply for a Certificate of Lawful development on grounds that enforcement action cannot be initiated as time expired. Keep evidence of completion from Building Control. If they refuse your retrospective Planning Application then Appeal. If that fails the enforcement action will restart but you still have time to comply. By then two years may have passed and tiles might be available again. But I reckon they will grant it at Appeal. I've seen far worse.

This is just one example of a manifold controller. As above it takes the individual thermostat inputs and conrolls the pumps and actuators on the manifold. this goes right next to the manifold. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/323201244988?epid=1549854398&hash=item4b404b9f3c:g:VBsAAOSwpLNX86pn

Absolutely. Engage and stick to the facts. Difficult as it may be, emotion and thoughts of 'fairness' should be put to one side.

+1 That's what @ProDave means by... Electrician is right. They are normally mounted near the manifold as they control the loop valves. Typically they have quite a few wires.. One from each room stat One to each valve on the manifold One from the time clock/programmer. One to the two port valve (sometimes this goes direct to the boiler and is called "Boiler Enable" or "call for heat" it's the logical OR of the room stats). One to the loop pump on the manifold (also logical OR of the room stats) Possibly one from an over temperature sensor on the manifold mixer.

@vala @RHayes Just coming back to this thread and apologies for the delay as I've been away. I have successfully managed to wire up a DIN relay in the two stats configuration that we previously discussed. I have tested the system using two switches and a light bulb. The switches representing the two tank stats and the bulb represents the "call for heat" from the boiler. If you want to see the circuit working pm me and I'll send you a video clip. The wiring is pretty simple and I'll put a diagram up later if anyone is interested. The relay that I have used is a Heschen ct1-25, they can be found from various online sellers for around £8.50. I'm not promoting this one in particular and there are of course other brands available. I have also bought a small DIN rail enclosure (~£11) to house it in. Hth.

An additional point of confusion which tripped me up when I wanted to use Opentherm. Opentherm controllers don't necessarily work with all boilers, in particular they seem to be setup to work with combi boilers; system boilers are a bit of a nightmare. I found this out when I tried to use a Drayton Wiser controller with a Viessman 100 system boiler. they both claimed to be Opentherm compatible, but they don't work together. In particular they don't communicate about hot water heating. The boiler needs to be set to high flow temperature when heating water rather than modulated down when heating radiators. I see from the Honetwell T4-M manual that it doesn't support DHW - although the T^-RHW does. Having played with a few options I'm not convinced that Opentherm offers much in reality. There's a weather compensation option on the boiler whihc does more or less the same thing.

We have used Sennocke in the past for this type of insurance. https://www.sennocke.co.uk/

@dpmiller so you reckon ‘ventilation’ in 5.1b is the same as ‘extract ventilation’ in 5.1a? I guess you’re right, I think most people here who refer to the “0.3 l/s per m2” section have all bumped up their extract rates to hit the target, and many of them are far wiser than me.

It’ll be fine. Crack on. £600 extra??? No wonder we’re cynical!

Are you wanting detail to wire it yourself? Or a baic idea for a competent electrician to do it? I will start with basics. 3 channel timer like the Horstman (under floor heating, radiators and hot water) The UFH needs a simple generic WIRED manifold controller, whoever supplies the manifold should be able to supply that. This takes a heat demand in from one channel of the programmer. The UFH zone thermostats connect to this controller each with 1mm 3 core & earth cable to wired thermostats. The manifold controller gives a "call for heat" output which drives a local 2 port motorised valve. The switch in the motorised valve gives the call for heat to the boiler (as do others) The rest is bread and butter stuff for a plumber and electrician. The other 2 channels of the 3 channel programmer connect to the radiators and HW in a standard S plan configuration each with a 2 port motorised valve. the radiator circuit will usually have one wired room thermostat and the HW will use the cylinder thermostat. The switch in both these 2 motorised valves connects in parallel with the one from the UFH to call for heat from the boiler. If looking for tradesmen to do this, find some that properly understand heating. If they need spoon feeding details like this, then they will be out of their depth if it does not work as expected.

I insured mine through this lot https://gsi-insurance.com/about-us/ Following recommendations on this forum.

I suspect the screws will make almost no difference. I had a look at this for basalt Vs stainless steel ties for our wide cavity. What's the total wall make up? Are the screws into the studs?

I think you should stick to the relevant facts and not get into arguments that muddy the waters. State why you believe you have complied with permitted development which asks for similar, not identical materials. Showing other examples of dormers in the area may also help in this case. State the facts regarding the inability to source other materials and the fact that you did try to engage with the council re this but received no reply. Arguments re the environment, waste of everyone's time and money etc will be considered irrelevant. Hopefully this is enough for them to see sense.

Don't see what the problem is - if its OK to be used vertically why not at an angle? Only has to support itself until the ceiling finish goes in as ProDave says. Perhaps they make more money on the Metac!! I also doubt lack of BBA certification will be an issue and never had a problem with this construction as the application is covered in the Appr Docs and relevant British Standards

Correct, there's no additional noise from a standing seam metal roof on a deck, than for other standard roofing materials. Profiled metal roofs, directly on to purlins, without a deck, can be noisy, but that's not a typical residential build up.

I went a slightly different route, and used Sarnafil S327. Fully welded standing seam, but not metal. Can be installed by only approved and qualified installer, came out at £70 per m2 with felt underlay installed. We have fully voulted ceilings and didn't want rain on steel noise.

Indeed. Planning Authority have powers to issue fixed penalties or report for consideration of prosecution.

You cannot have a claim of ownership if the person that sold you the goods does not have the capacity to pass that ownership on. Life would be a joke if anyone could sell anything not belonging to them, and the person who passed over the cash can just claim 'I paid for it'. If that was the case, then I claim to have bought the whole of the UK, and I am about to send out the ground rent invoices. So pay up.

Play the ball, not the man eh?

Your case about their mal administration is convincing hence it can only be counter productive to throw in the extra fluff and trivia I just quoted above. Speculating about the council's capacity and motivation to challenge your actions will just prompt them to think "go on punk make my day".

What an astonishing perspective, though I am not surprised in your case. Respecting property ownership is a fundamental principal of our society that goes back centuries but not any more according to you. Owner A was clearly the rightful owner and since he never sold the house he must still be the owner by any normal sense of decency. Owner B is either the victim of a huge fraud or an accomplice in an elaborate scam, either way he should be forced out. Buyer beware and all that.

You can't spank your mates either, even if they want you to. R V Brown 1994 A much more interesting case than Ryland V Fletcher or Nash v Inman, which has no relevance here at all. I do seem to remember there was an interesting case where some protesters damaged some military equipment. They got off because by damaging the planes (I think it was) they had saved a greater crime being committed i.e. dropping bombs. But I don't think putting up white or brown tiles/cladding falls into this group.

I think this is a reference to the recent news that some branches of the nation state declined to intervene in the case of whole house theft through land registry fraud, yet another branch of the state is willing to criminalize a householder over a dispute about dormer window cladding.

Right, drilled and inspected this morning. No insulation.

You could plumb in a plate heat exchanger, say a 50 kW one, Then run whatever you want off of that. No ned for an extra storage cylinder.

Yes, this is always the problem, and we are still, on electricity, paying a premium for installing new RE, but the gas network is not contributing much to it. For twenty years everyone has known that a carbon tax is the way to go, but each government has be too scared to introduce it, so they have this sneaky tax what most people do not realise. A 1p/kWh would have raised around £16.5bn in 2019. Dirt cheap.

I would be more concerned with the fact that failure to comply with an enforcement notice is a criminal offence.

Thanks. A bit of reading up on the appeals process clarifies that these typically take 3 months. Worst case is that the recipient of an enforcement notice has 4 months to effect a solution. The OP said the scaffolding had to be taken down which implies there is time to revise the cladding. I assume if a householder completely refused to comply with an enforcement notice after loosing an appeal many more months would elapse before a council appointed contractor would be appointed to enter and alter a property.

It will be a real pain to strip the cladding and tile it. Have you worked out the cost? It may be worth doing this and presenting the council with the costings and time involved to see if they could be swayed. Paying thousands and throwing away perfectly good materials does not seem environmentally or financially responsible for the questionable benefit that may arise.

I’m afraid i have little sympathy for this. I made life much more complicated for myself so that I could comply with PD, including waiting 18 weeks for the supply of roof tiles, and building things in an illogical order. If I were you I would order the tiles and fix the breach when they eventually arrive.

Think it was this one, or possibly the model before. looks like they have a 6600 for $250... you can also find on Amazon. https://store.blackview.hk/products/blackview-bv9800-pro-thermal-imaging-4g-rugged-phone Edited to say- it's an absolute brick, you wouldn't want to use it as an every day phone, but with a decent FLIR and the added extras of being a ruggedised phone, it's pretty decent. As with most of these toys though, it's not out of charge at the bottom of a bag somewhere. Which reminds me I really should digit out and see how my changes have progressed!

A tank stat on your thermal store (close to the bottom so you're constantly topping up given it's 'free') could call for heat, the two port valve would open, when opened, it's limit switch would turn the pump on and your domestic cylinder would top up. You could make it even simpler and run your TS permanently- forget the valve and treat it as a heat sink from the 2000l store. put the TS in series with your dump load, so all heat runs through the TS on it's way to being dumped. You'd need some isolation valves for maintenance and need a bypass for when the cylinder was 'at temp' although it will never go above 70 if the temp of the water leaving the 2000l is 74. Effectively you're just treating your 2000l as a boiler which runs at a constant 74 and need a plumber to sort you out a thermal store that can use it. Depending on how hard you use DHW/ heating (you say little above) then the 2.8kW 'recovery' of the main tank shouldn't be an issue.

When I built the solar setup for the barn, I had a good look at battery options and ended up going with Pylontech US3000 batteries. These I got for under a grand each (48v, 3.5kWh capacity and 90% D.O.D), and they can be daisy chained up to a max of 8 units, without any need for additional hardware. I initially got one battery, then added a second about 6 months later. There was a lot I had to learn to create this fairly small and simple set up. One example, was that each battery has a max current that it can take in terms of charging/discahrging. So if you are looking to take a relatively high load out through an inverter, you may need more batteries so that the load you're taking can be split across these batteries. See image attached.

Most .ASHP deliver DHW hotter than UFH so it will run harder. Mine only delivers one temp, set to 48’ in my case but yes it does work harder in colder weather.

@Susan61 Is the dormer cladding on the house adjacent white - appears so from the photo? I would suggest this would be something to use in any discussion with the planning authority.

There has to be at least 28 days between service of any notice and it coming into effect. This gives the person on whom the notice has been served the opportunity to appeal the notice, and puts the notice in aspic until the appeal has been determined. The appeal may be upheld and notice dismissed, the notice varied or appeal rejected. Compliance timescales are not fixed and can vary, be staged depending on the requirements of the notice. Enforcement appeals are determined by planning reporters. You would have to go to judicial review on a point of planning law to get a Judge involved.

Ours works hardest when doing DHW and then towards the end of the cycle when the HW is nearing it's target temperature so the water temperature from the ASHP is at it's highest. Could your unit have been defrosting this morning, that usually only takes a couple of minutes.

Some might want to read advice given above with caution.... Here's advice on a package of Dichloromethane. '... Hazard Class: 6.1 Packing Group: 3 Hazard Phrases: Causes skin irritation. Causes serious eye irritation ... suspected of causing cancer ... Obtain special instructions before use ...' In other words don't use it. I would hate BH to be associated with dangerous advice.

In our case we had a bit of a mix: M&E Spec: We used a consultant (same people we are using for passive house) for mechanical spec based on requirements. This included heating/cooling demand calculations and recommended heating/cooling strategies as well as ventilation approach etc. This also covered gas vs. GSHP vs. ASHP etc. UFH Design: Timber frame supplier designed layout this but I validated this, and proposed increased 200mm spacing, using the heat loss figures in M&E spec and a LoopCAD model. MVHR Design: Supplier (same comapny as M&E Consultant). ASHP/UVC: Supplier (same comapny as M&E Consultant). I specified ASHP/UVC brands and have pushed for certain things like mixed heating circuits and monitoring. Hot/Cold Water: M&E Spec included indicative drawings for plumber, but I redesigned this myself to avoid recirculation loop using manifold approach discussed on forum and to the plumbers annoyance specificed manifolds and pipe sizing for each run etc. PV/Battery: Supplier. I specified 3-phase and chose panel/inverter manufactuer. Electrical: Have just left this to electricians, but have double-checked voltage drop on LED runs and had them replace things.

This may come in handy, a conversion sheet I put together some time ago.

+1. Mines never been cleaned. Can changes can be a bit messy, but let any excess go off then scrape it off. Same with the nozzle; a quick scrape with a Stanley knife blade before use and all's good!

At this point I'm glad we do have an architect practice adminstrating the contract and we also fixed price there work. One thing I have discovered is https://www.perlego.com/ have a lot of useful books including a few on JCT contract administration and construction law. It costs £12 a month with a couple of free weeks.

My wife receives chilled medical supplies through the post and these are wrapped with about 2 sq.ft of sheep’s wool. I have been collecting them up and recently I threw some down in one of my loft spaces. Would probably take around a century to fill it but it saves space in the bin throwing it away ?

I am in the process of have a resin bound driveway installed. 105 square meters. In my initial searches on forums like this a figure of £60 to £90 a square metre was consistently quoted. These quotes never include the groundworks required to get to the final product. I had quotes for the whole job between £8K and £20K+. The company I finally settled with are charging £120 a square metre and that is after some negotiation. This includes excavating the driveway area, MOT1 sub base, open tarmac sub base, resin bound gravel and all retaining blocks and threshold from the street. So to get a true price for whatever surface you go with be sure to make sure the price per square metre includes everything even down to recessed manhole covers etc and not just the finish surface product.

Definitely 5 litres of SBR bonding agent Mixed 5-1 with water Rolled onto the floor Day before if pos 5 mil notched trowel Stanley knife and tape Get the whole room first then roll the matting up running a pencil line along the edge as you take them up So that you can put your adhesive down in narrow sections We normally use a rubber grouting float to flatten it down I put two sections down on ours and my wife did the rest over two afternoons