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You are clearly in the wrong place.

This is starting to remind me of a 'zoot' thread🥷

I'm not sure where you are but I have a selection of plastic posts (albeit attached to unused road signs at a house I am going to demolish. I could also throw some lifebuoys in. 🙂

I had a moment four years ago and bought an 8 acre big plot, well, a croft, which currently has no access (boat count?) and I need a sanity check about my thinking. I'll set the scene first. I have an easement for an access road across a neighbours land whose been very helpful and has talked over options of old pathways to the ruined croft house and potential new ones. I've settled on a simple almost straight line down the 170 meter incline from the road using an existing field entrance following the boundary fence to my land where there is also an old entrance, then a turning and parking area. So far so good, the land type is scrub peat, but right by the coast so not too deep, maybe 700mm in one small area. I've PP in place for a 3m wide road, veg strip, textile and 250mm hardcore, joining the road will need to be bitmac dressed for the first 6m. I've had some quotes, £12k plus stone, and therein lies the problem, I only have access to one quarry and they are flat out with other work, plus, £12k plus guessing somewhere around £6k+ for stone (240 tonnes if I could ever get any) is a lot of money and a big proportion to the cost for the land for just access. I realise that's probably a laughable amount for some people, but I've limited funding and so have to work with a tight budget out of my salary. I thought about doing it myself, so spoke to a local haulers about stone delivery who thought I'd need a much bigger excavator than the 3t one or backhoe/loader I had in mind, and experience to pull something like this off, let alone a big issue with delivering to site along a single track road with nowhere to tip, saying their lorry would get bogged down without a solid base. Casual Sunday reading some old posts and I stumbled across someone mentioning that they used a borrow pit to provide the stone for a track on their build and that set me thinking I wonder if I could do the same, at least to get a drivable track in place that I could dress with better stone at a later date, we're talking very low frequency traffic here, not the A9. I'd still need someone to do the entrance as well, that would be a few too many tarmac drive repair buckets. That's a lot of text to get to the point of wondering what my success would be in identifying an area to dig for a stone, as a complete novice, what plant I would need, as a novice, and if I'm just dreaming and should just sell the land or save up like everyone else? I'm not completely useless, spent many years driving tractors around, general horticultural machinery, do my own vehicle maintenance etc. so feel that I might be able to learn enough to do basic stuff with a digger, slowly. This is nice writing it down, feels like therapy! Edit: I'm not sure what all those straight lines are, apart from the obvious fence lines, I'm assuming drainage but some are vertical which makes less sense, it's not very apparent on the ground at all, they pop out when viewed from above like this.

Recycled plastic: https://www.kedel.co.uk/mixed-plastic-lumber/SG045085.html? Cheap as and seemingly made to order. They might put a rope hole in for you. Edit: Apologies, I see @Tempalready linked this.

Don't worry. It is good for the garden and dissolves. Just keep solids out with some mesh.

The other type of inexpensive fencing that I like is metal "Estate Fencing", like this: The one above is "Chatsworth" style fencing at £25 + VAT per metre, which is not bargain basement, but is very reasonable for what you get. I think that would look attractive along your canal bank, and could be postcreted in without risk of rotting in 10-15 years. It should outlast you. You can get gates for it, which would help if you are mooring your own boat. And if within say 250-500mm of the edge people would be discouraged from getting off (the boat). Especially people on their first boating holiday ... who are your main customer group aiui? Here's another example: https://www.thetraditionalco.co.uk/estate-fencing/ I have noticed developers using an ersatz manufactured version of this, which looks good and must be inexpensive - but I have no idea where it is sourced. Distant crop from Streetview. This is on a development called Sutton Heights by a company called Gleeson if you want to follow up. Detail below. Above is outside the show house. Ferdinand

For anyone who might pick up this thread... We've now been told by Western Power that the rules are changing from April 2023 and the customer will no longer be required to pay for infrastructure upgrades! So there will just be a set charge for a connection regardless of the infrastructure upgrade requirements. A fair a sensible move I would say.

We aren't towpath side so they would struggle unless they were hanging off them and pulled them in when they get stuck in our garden. An idea worth considering though! All the boats should have poles so why they can't just push themselves off is beyond me rather than jumping off into our garden and then getting stuck when they can't get back on the boat! Some idiot ripped off our duck ramp a few weeks ago (hire boat). The marina from the hire boat company replaced it though and made us a much nicer one just in time for the ducklings.

How about... Posts set into freestanding concrete bases, whiskey barrels etc: Or 25L containers filled with concrete. I suppose the issue with both the above is some toe rag could push them into the canal... Final offer...4" soil pipe set into the ground, fill with concrete or pea shingle even. Cross pipe at the top for a rope. You could prime and paint whichever V&B pastel shade floats your boat..... Could even 3D print you some themed, feature pinnacles to slip on top!

The cheapest option is always knock in round posts and half rounds as horizontals ie horse fence. It looks rustic, if that is what you want. Best source is an agricultural supplier. For this I would suggest heavy posts - either 5" 6" or 8". Should work out at less than £10 per metre run. Ferdinand

I’ll have one of them from 01/08 as well 😂😂

Lengths of good old fashioned telegraph poles as posts?

I've used 10 x 10 recycled plastic from here https://www.earth-anchors.com/product-category/lumber/ for decking in the past. Won't rot, so it's ideal for here. They have a free cutting service. Not sure if that extends to a free drilling service. But it's worth an ask. It's available in 8 x 8 which would work for rope posts. Just needs the holes (and the rope). What's your plan for fixing them? Can you dig near the edge or allowed to bolt to the hard standing that is the edge. Best of luck.

Nope - not RAMS. He can only use the PWA to ensure his foundations are secure but he has to appoint a PWA surveyor or request it when you do the PW Agreement. Who owns the access ..? You, him or a 3rd party ..?? If he has no Right Of Way or interest then he cannot tell you how to do this. Do you have a party wall agreement .? And do you have a written agreement from the landowner who owns the Lane / drive to dig it up ..? If so.. crack on .. Heras fencing stops the neighbour - hire a rough arse Irishman as a groundworker and let them handle the neighbour relations … some of us do - but we aren’t contracted to you so the PI doesn’t cover more than general advice. Nosey / Badly informed neighbours are a nightmare - you need to be firm but fair and tbh if you have the permissions in place you crack on. Pandering to retired hasbeens will have you reaching for the gaviscon.

If you have a bit of spare time use Sketchup. It’s not that tricky when you get into it. YouTube will help. Model the shed with standard sized OSB, ply or whatever you plan to use.

I think that getting rid of first floor UFH would be a mistake. Folks are always harping on about not needing it as there is no heating requirement for a well insulated house. Time and again I bang the drum for the cooling aspect. With first floor UFH you are doubling the surface area which you can cool with. Any installer that says you can't run an ASHP like that is talking crap. End of. My floor area is approx 140m2, double it and I have 280m2 of UFH pipes available to me. I run the ASHP in cooling node from around 9am to 6pm only on days where it is around 23 degrees and above outside. My house is not hot. It works. I thought it was quite cool.today given it was supposed to be hottest day of the year, went outside around 3pm to fix kids bike tyre - bloody boiling outside. When I went back in, nice and comfortably cool. My ASHP cools to 12 degrees, by time it hits the manifold it goes around house at about 15 degrees. Slight condensation on a few pipes in plant room, nothing anywhere else. Job. Done.

I disconnect the discharge hose and take the whole unit outside and sit it on a bench. It gets stripped down, and all de-crudded with compressed air. All the crud now lives outdoors. It’s a PITA which I will be happy not to have to deal with when the split AC units go in. Good deal on 2x ( 3 x 9000btu ) units from appliancesdirect.com so I can have climate control in 5 rooms plus my office / man-shed. I spend a lot of time in there doing M&E designs and it gets unbearable in the summer. My bad for not going whole-hog with insulated roof / walls / floors, but tbh I just didn’t anticipate being so busy with the consultancy stuff!! Lesson learned 🥺.

drill a hole in the slabs hammer into ground https://www.simplysafetygroup.co.uk/fencing-pins.html?source=googleshopping&category_id=1546&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4vbBsK6A-QIViaztCh3gnQwkEAQYASABEgIODPD_BwE run rope at mid height and high level.

Not me but... I believe adding one to an existing completed house is standard rated. Adding one to a new house under construction I would expect to be zero rated to you if "supply and fit" or reclaimable if you buy the charger. The labour for fitting it should be zero rated. My guess is that many companies have never fitted one to a new house so might not understand that it should be zero rated. In that case it might be easier to buy the charger yourself and get it fitted, then reclaim the VAT with the rest of the reclaim for your house. This may affect any warranty though?

This place sells 70x70 plastic posts in brown or grey and various lengths but they are made to order so check leadtime. https://www.kedel.co.uk/mixed-plastic-lumber/recycled-mixed-plastic-square-post-with-point-70mm-x-70mm.html

Standard 3" square garden fence posts. Get the ones with a pointed end and you can (if the ground is not too rocky) just hammer them in most of the way with a sledge hammer. Drill a hole through with a flat wood bit near the top to feed a length of rope through. A nice thick chunky bit of traditional looking rope would look nice, low enough that you can step over it onto your boat.

Probably not, but it depends where you are, what your electrical consumption is and how good the site is. If you are thinking of replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump you definitely won't be able to do it. I have a sort of off-grid system which is well over sized and it won't cover our winter usage. This shows our monthly generation which varies from 115kWhr in December (3.7 kWhr per day) to 1352 kWhr in May (44kWhr per day). That's a 12:1 variation through the year; in fact it would be more than that but quite a lot of potential generation in the summer is lost as it can't be used. This site isn't ideal and you could get more winter power with a site on the south coast with ideal orientation and no shading. The other issue is how long you need autonomy for, IOW how much battery storage you will need. You tend to get several days together with no usable solar in the winter. You will need enough storage to cope with this and hope that you get a good sunny day at the end! For instance, our big array averaged 2.2kWhr per day in late December and didn't get to a reasonable 11.2kWhr until the 9th of January. If you are very frugal and only use 8kWhr per day you would need at least 10 days of storage or 80kWhr and it would probably still not be enough. People who seriously go off grid have a generator to cover winter/dull day shortfall.

First thing is to go to PVGIS and work out what yield you can expect.

This is going to sound bitter: because it is. Done carefully, and with a dash of luck, this post could save you over £500. Find another Preliminary Desktop Study online in your LPA Planning Application website The closer to your property the study was done the better Download it Edit it to show your personal details Tweek it a bit here and there. Falsify the Author's signature Submit the 'report' to the LPA as your own. Cost? Zero. I advise you NOT to do what I suggest above. Because it's unethical. It's not unlawful or illegal. It might be fraudulent. Why the somewhat uncharacteristic suggestion? It's what my neighbour did 5 years ago. References provided on request. The bigger picture is somehow fitting. 6 years later, he's still appealing his second Enforcement Order having spent a few thousand pounds on pointless Appeals - and still does not have Planning Permission.

Looking at my gauge I have to read it on the side. If it was horizontal I could read it the right way up is all I can think.

Look out for second hand lengths of granite / quartz worktop with a sink cutout on gumtree / Freecycle. That's what we did, got it all for free Inc the sink. Just need a tap. Plan to mount on a couple brick piers. Have the water supply sorted and just going to use a rainwater gully for the waste. Don't forget to insulate all your pipework, either that or draindown over winter.

That sounds just like my bungalow's timber frame....

Google found an example you can look at for foundation trench but a lot of editing needed and your contractor would need to agree it all. If you can't get the neighbour off your back without one best ask the contractor if they have one. https://nationaltradesmen.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/example_method_statement_for_excavation_work.pdf

@George Hi George. Good summary but where folk get confused is when say a beam that on first appearance seems to be carrying only vertical loading suddenly needs a lot more fire protection, often jumping to one hour when you have a boundary condition. The reason is that often it may be providing lateral restraint to another element of the structure that relies on this lateral support to maintain stability during and after (not covered in the regs but good design should consider keeping our emergency services safe) a fire. I posted earlier some extracts from the English regs earlier (not checked the NI regs yet but assume they say the same). Clause 5.2 covers this. The Scottish regs are similar in this respect. The dormer? My starting point would be to ask.. is the dormer part of the roof / rafters? Is it sacrificial like the rest of the pitched part of the roof. I makes no logical sense that you can let the rest of the roof burn away but have to fire protect the dormer cheeks to a more onerous level as the support stucture for the dormer would have burnt away.

I think you could use one of the GPIO counter timers to capture without reference to the software them just read the counter at whatever interval and work out the difference since last interval, and accounting for rollover of the counter at the top - not sure what that is 16 / 32 bits or some such. You don't really need the actual time of each pulse just a number at a given time.

The minute you ( @Maria ) start doing the contractor's work, you lose the protection that DOMESTIC CLIENTS are afforded by CDM 2015. My ( I have a feeling -our- ) collective inexpert advice is to get your contractor to make the operational arrangements. Here is our extended discussion on CDM 2015 Please read it.

Yep, incompetent installer. Now there’s a surprise 😂

It is without doubt a load of old tosh. Either your installer did not know what they were doing or they knowingly did something wrong but don't want to own up.

Sounds like a load of old tosh. Almost all heat pump will provide 55 degC water some over 60 degC. Does you cylinder have a heat pump coil in it? If it doesn't that may be reason. What is your flow temperature, when heating you hot water cylinder?

Yes. Just be sure to start work before June 2023. See above.

@nod Feel for you Nod. You spend years building up a good business, good reputation for high quality work and something like this happens through no fault of your own. Hopefully pragmatism will prevail and you will reach an equitable agreement. All the best for Monday. For all. A few of the domestic builders I work (extensions and garage conversions for example) with have been doing open book pricing for a while. They have been fixing the labour cost, declaring the material cost and asking that if the materials increase in price the customer makes up the difference, if they drop the sum due for materials is reduced accordingly. Unfortunately this is not as easy to negotiate on larger projects / commercial works.

Tell nobody,

"Fools and their money are easily parted" I am with @SuperJohnG on this.

Came across this when researching shed construction... a shed with a bunker underneath it. Pretty cool!

There you go. Now you have so many options you will be like the centipede in the poem choosing one. The centipede was happy, quite until the frog in fun said, "Pray - which leg goes after which?" He worked her mind to such a pitch she lay distracted in a ditch, considering how to run.

Ah, apologies. I missed the actual question…. The crud gets effectively removed by blowing the compressed air in the opposite direction to normal airflow through the exchanger, ergo it doesn’t get forced deeper between the fragile narrow fins Disclaimer: Replies may be affected by the fact that the Peroni is ice cold and going down like silk. 🥵.

Naval Mines sound more logical and appropriate to end the problem. Hopefully it happens once then they all see it on TV and get educated. BAE Systems still make these aiui which you can dial up and down between a force of a small amount of TNT and 600kg of TNT. You get a show because they also have a shelf life, then blow themselves up. You can help the other side too. The Shipwrecked Mariners Society still use WW2 mines for fundraising for "shipwrecked" people. You can host a fundraising location to help survivors and victims of canal shipwrecks. In a few months there may be some secondhand ones from Ukraine on Dark Web Ebay - if you are a bargain hunter with insufficient security clearance to purchase one officially. ATB. Ferdinand