Leaderboard

Hi I have been lurking on here for quite a while but not got involved. Just a update our on VAT reclaim and our time frame. We knocked down previous bungalow and started our new build in July 2019, we moved in in June 2021. The house was not anywhere near finished but we had a kitchen and 1 ensuite. We eventually managed to get building regulations sign off 1st June 2023 (we were worried about Hmrc and being lived in for 2 years). VAT reclaim posted off on 21st August 2023 for about 21k, had a confirmation text and letter on the 29th August confirming they have received it and should hear within 6 weeks. I received another text yesterday (1st September) while on holiday saying your DIY refund has been issued, I thought it had been refused as it all sounded to quick. We got home today to find the package from Hmrc with a letter confirming that the full VAT reclaim will be paid 21k. I checked my bank account and it was paid yesterday. I can't believe it was less than 2 weeks with and 480 invoices and no deductions. Even though I have not contributed the help in this forum has been very helpful Thank you.

I think this is getting a bit hypothetical. Ultimately if a buffer of circa 100litres is needed then it will take up a minimum amount of space. I spent a bit of time looking and found one square buffer here - https://www.advanceappliances.co.uk/product/141-buffer-stores/ However it is short and squat so wouldn’t particularly help unless there is a place where it would fit. I don’t believe anyone makes a very tall skinny buffer. If someone finds one please post a link. I would simply ask the installer/nice lady at Vaillant - 1. Can we have a backup heater instead of a buffer? 2. If we have to have a buffer can we have one that fits in the cupboard where the hydraulic unit is or any other space that would work for @zoothorn accepting that there might be a minimum size required. No one needs to know how ASHPs work, why buffers are needed, is this different to other makes of ASHP or anything else. @zoothorn can you just put those two questions to the nice woman at Vaillant and the installer. Just email them if possible and await the response. If the response makes no sense to you then post it here and we can see if we can help.

Good question @George There is a bit more to this story. It started with the Client asking me round to have a look at upgrading a rear extension built say 30 years ago, badly, so it is done now... leaking heat, windows and doors beyond repair... flat roof .. no / negligable insulation. On the end of the rear extension there is a conseravtory that is done but has what look like a good found. Putting my Architectural design hat on I was thinking of knocking down the conservatory down to dwarf wall level and incorporating that into the upgraded extension. For me there is the structural design, calcs etc and the Architectural side. I wear two hats so that allows me to provide a one stop shop. When I went round to first meeting the Client I spotted these big cracks. After talking about the Architectural opportunities I started to discuss how with my SE hat on I would make it all work. At that point I said.. I won't do the job unless we can understand more about the cracking. They told me that the neighbours (semi detached house) had just slapped out their rear elevation and put in a "goal post frame".. I'm thinking I bet their SE has not thought this through and not provided enough detailed drawings for the builder to follow. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.. but from experience I know that SE's under the Scotland SER scheme are cutting corners... and I don't want their bad work putting my Client at risk... and me also. The Client mentioned that Network rail have been working near their property.. but I know the location, nipped round to have a look at what they have been up to and concluded that none of their retaining walls have shifted such that they could have impacted on my Client's property to any significant degree.. I had a look at possible ground vibration.. again.. was happy with that. Now given that I'm doing all the design work for the project I itemised the tell tale installation and crack monitoring out at £600.00, I don't charge vat as below the threshold. The tell tales cost about £100.00 ( bits and bobs and me driving about), I allowed £300.00 for my day to install and I'll tie in the monitoring with my visits to do the dimensional survey and when I meet with the Client as part of the usual design process. It will take about six months to do the design / planning and building permissions.. nothing happens fast with the council... but six months is enough time for me to get a feel for any significant movement.. before the big bucks get spent. I have explained all this to the Client so they are fully on board with the approach. They know that it is not perfect but we are doing the best we can in time we have to a avoid a catastrophic outcome... This job is a little different as normally I would often monitor settlements over a longer period of time. But here my gut feeling is that the cracks are long standing and pretty much stopped moving.. but I have my doubts about what their SE / Builder has been doing next door. If they have made a mistake then I should be able to clock this pretty quickly before my Client starts their work.. as soon as they start the neighbours could blame them and me and they are off the hook... as last man on the job gets the blame... or has to prove they are not.. very costly potentially. If I find things are moving then I would dig deeper.. maybe phone up the SE for next door and say.. I'm finding this.. do you want to have a chat? I can't expose my Client to this risk. The rates would be different if it was isolated settlement monitoring.. much will depend on the risk element etc. For me as I'm in at the start of the job and designing it I can make sure I stay away from things like big point loads in vulnerable spots..close to party walls etc so reduce risk that way.

Not TV but YT … https://youtu.be/OpIRhkTOPAI?si=w5rU1roee0FxQnIt Don’t usually watch these things but thought this was interesting and quite enjoyable to watch. Some dodgey safety practices but I liked the simplicity of construction

Few £100 to get the roof properly tidied up, gutter cleaned out, then stick a few large buckets of water down the down pipe and forget about it!! Our garage down pipe disappears underneath our single garage and just magically appears 20m in the verge. Has survived for 30 years without any obvious intervention before I arrived and tidied it all up. Thats not something I'd lose sleep over.

Neither wall looks to be a party wall. If yours (the right in the photo) was meant to be a party wall it would have aligned with the fence? And if it was a party wall they would be joining to it. But some hedgehog moss protector in the gutter to make the moss bounce off rather than go down the pipe.

Can't say I'd lose sleep over it, not much you can do now either way.. Either drainage rods/drain snake to get to the blockage or just have the drain pipe drain onto the roof! Are there any large trees or sources of debris that would make a block likely?

Looks like you're getting the hang of it then . Or maybe the LPA has figured that you were not going to give up...

One thing to bear in mind about "faster construction time", is that you'll likely have several months of design time, looking for specialists etc etc. In which time you'd have built a standard timber framed house.

Those rates may apply to a commercial kitchen, but why you would need them in a domestic house is questionable. The further the extractor is away from the hob the less effective it is at taking away the smells and grease, so manufacturer quote stupid flow rates to get around it. 10x kitchen volume is the whole house volume or more every hour. Passivhaus did a test on extract hood flow rates and effectiveness, basically the conclusion was min allowed distance from source to fan was best and required least flow.

I am interested to know how you get on with this. CLT and insulated panels are more often used in larger commercial and community buildings. Please let us know how you progress with this and best of luck.

Even tho none are set, try reprogramming them to zero- put in a value, save, then put in midnight times again. Just in case something is corrupt in the clock gubbins

dont give them the satisfaction. PC have zero power when it comes to planning. Just ignore the moron and dont respond to them. It only gives them ammunition. Next time you see him in passing just laugh at him and carry on walking.

We have designed and built two SAP A rated homes. The first one no one at all was interested in the energy performance, just STATUS. Yes, a natural stone large 4 bed house on 1.5 acres had STATUS in the North Yorks country. So we sold it pdq. Next was different. Another 4 bed detached but in an urban infill. Relatively low value street and, to be open about it, effing horrible neighbours. There was no status. Only one person who came to recognised the benefits of the energy performance, the feed in tariff, the bus route in the street, schools in walking distance (she had two kids), three supermarkets, doctors surgery, pharmacies, wide range of shops, cinema, restaurants all in walking distance. She was a Polish lady who was able to have a detailed technical conversation with me in English. Husband was British and only interested in STATUS. The two had an embarrassing confrontation right in front of us. They subsequently bought a house in a nearby village that had more status but no local services at all, poor woman.

Don't bother trying to understand Heatpumps if you are struggling with those explanations. It's a black box of stuff that you put electricity in and hot water comes out. That's all you need to know. If there is insufficient volume of water in the radiators and pipes or your plumbing system is laid out in a certain way, then you need a "buffer vessel" of a certain size. This buffer vessel can be smaller if you also have something called a "backup heater". As you have struggled with the explanations provided i'd suggest you leave it to your installer whose job it is to install HP systems.

Bear in mind that the property will be more expensive to insure and difficult to mortgage an sell on.

If your blocks are designed as a normal unreinforced masonry domestic wall then they are a different animal from the problems you see in the press. The problems you see published are when aerated concrete is used in combination with steel reinforcement so they act as beams. Have attached some info from the IStructE for some bedtime reading.. so you can hopefully sleep ok. RAACs-v3.pdf

Over 400m I would put in some rodding points, whether addressed by the regs or not . I haven't looked). In theory the effluent is clean by this stage, and shouldn't ever block, and the rainwater guidelines should suffice.

Isn’t one of the issues that the concrete has steel reinforcing bars that rust due to leaky roofs (as it was commonly used to span wide flat roofs) and over time this has failed? I have Mannok foundation blocks too. I doubt I’ll see another 30 years so it will be someone else’s problem 😂

Thanks all for your thoughts and suggestions. Having got a clearer idea of the full set up and requirements from the sprinkler companies, I sent an email to our BCO to update and ask for confirmation of likely approval of it all...and to ask one more time if there was any other way to mitigate for the fire access issue. And he has now suggested we could look at mist systems that comply with BS8458, which could be an acceptable alternative, despite me asking about them 2 years ago! So, back to the research drawing board with fingers crossed for a positive outcome!

I have two units, but that's to do with our house layout and the resulting duct lengths. My whole system was under £2k installed. I like Titon HRV, UK made, good tech support and spares on the shelf. Often come up on eBay for super cheap prices.

Lots of good points regarding type of grinder but preparation is the key to a good job. I used to be a builder before I got into SE stuff so here is how I would cut a raggle in a nice stone wall that is compliant and is going to look good and professional. Stone walls often have a tendency to disintegrate when you start to cut chase for lead, but you want your lead work to look good and not leak. I would start by fixing a level bit of 100 x 25mm thick timber to the wall using screws and rawl plugs where I want the top of my chase to be. Next I favour a 9" grinder with a standard diamond disc, I think the kerf width is about 2.0 - 3.0 mm.. the kerf is the width of slot that the disc cuts. The 9" grinder has more power but is also much more controllable (I have two of these 9" grinders but only one smaller grinder for this reason) as it has big handle to grab onto and a bit of self weight that stops it jumping about. Mark the disc with a pen to give you the depth of cut. Go for 25 -30 mm on average into the stone if you have a good thick wall. Now you have to judge this as the stone will not be flat but you are looking for a penetration into the stone of 25.0mm to comply with the regs.. and the Cookson / Calder good leadwork guide.. which is your Bible on this. Download the Cookson or Calder guide to good lead work... if that is the only thing you do... it will save you money and grief! The main thing is that the depth of cut will vary.. this is because when you come to fold your lead into the chase it needs to be straight to look good but the wall will be in and out a bit! That is part of the reason for the 100 x 25 timber. Next move your 100 x 25 timber down by 20mm and repeat the above. You'll find that the timber has "suffered" a bit when you cut the top but that is ok, and that is why I cut the top chase first.. which is the bit you see. Now you have two cuts in the masonry. Get a chisel and carefully break out the stone between the two cuts and clean the back of the chase out, then brush / clean off dust. You should now have a cracking good looking chase for your lead that has not damaged the stone. The next bit is preparing the lead flashing and fixing it into the chase. This is a diferent skill and can be done in a couple of ways not least. With my traditional hat on I use little strips of lead rolled, folded and wedged in to anchor the flashing, then point up with mortar to seal completely. The flashing need a good bit of preparation so you have a task ahead if you want to start dressing and folding the flashings. How you fold the lead into the chase is really important. I could try and describe but it would take ages.. try looking on U tube. This is a skill that is passed down the generations, I learnt it form a lead worker hands on... It's not in a book! See the Cookson guide. I form the bends that go into the wall a bit like a cavity tray... hard to describe here without writing a massive essay. I think if you are asking about a grinder size and discs then you have a bit more to learn about how you do these flashings to make them last and water tight. Lead working is a skill that takes many years to perfect so please don't take this the wrong way. Keep asking questions! If you do this and grasp the basics then your grinder question will resolve it's self. One last thing.. make sure you get Patination oil and treat both sides of the lead or you will end up with massive stains down the roof!

I'll let you know this winter @de devil tail It isn't rated for high temperatures and pressures in the district heated blocks. It isn't flexible enough that you would want to use it for underfloor heating. But for cold/hot drinking water and low temperature heating I think it will be just fine. 🙂

I would get hold of a cheap wildlife cam, and get your car covered by that. If you catch them, pass it on to the police. As far as neighbours complaining, i wrote to the council via my solicitor advising them that, as they had found out all the calls were false. If they continued to contact me without doing due diligence first, they would be in court for harassment, causing stress, and wasting my time. Not heard from the council since.

I've just started with microcementing a shower now. Decided to use an ensuite for the experiment so if it goes wrong, nobody's really going to notice Here are photos of 1st stage - boarded with Aquapanel Outdoor as the base because I had 3 panels knocking around, but you can use plaster and skim, plasterboard, and even plywood as the base. At this point I've just filled the countersunk screw wholes, joints and gaps with the microcement base coat. Nothing out of the ordinary just recording the steps for anyone interested. Tomorrow will be sanding it all down and then hopefully applying basecoat and mesh.

Ongoing projects is ALL we know. This shit never fecking ends!!! Am I laughing or crying? It's complicated.

you could allways knock a hole in your extension to unblock your downpipe. you would need to access next door anyway which is rude.

I've gone with the mid range Vent Axia Sentinel Kinetic. Only £899 in the Air Shop sale and good support, parts and usage across the UK and Europe. Those fancy units aren't worth it for my retrofit - and most will not go through my loft hatch. Everything should be about £2k all in, including core drill bits etc. I'll be installing mine starting as soon as the ducting arrives from BCP, ideally will have it in by end of September. Another bunch of hours in the loft, yay... I hate it up there 😅

As previously stated Our first build went on the market last weekend We both work full time and I go to the build each evening till 9 pm So viewings have to be grouped together No for sale sign this time Which seams to have cut down on time wasters While I didn’t expect to be besieged by Echo warriors With sky high bills I did expect some interest in insulation levels Absolutely zero One even asked if it would be a big job to remove the loft insulation in order to board out for storage I do get it Schools M2 etc But with bills so high Heating costs should be somewhere on there wishlist

Totally agree Three doctors and a solicitor so far One asked about parking I said we once had twelve cars on the drive He asked if there was any restrictions in the layby at the side of the house as twelve wouldn’t always be enough Then added Especially at the weekend Swingers I reckon 😁