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You've been on the forum for a bit so it's fine to share suppliers you've used. That's particularly true given someone else asked for the info!

Here you go https://www.pipelineservices.co.uk I'm not sure if the forum rules or etiquette would prefer me to DM this, but why not give them a shout out as they did a good. I'm sure Forum Admin will advise if I got this wrong!

Just completed on land, relatively straightforward although vendors solicitors was part of the hack that has hapened in the last week or so. Now the hard work starts! (actully the really hard work will start sometime next year, in the meantime there is a lot of stuff to clear)

I'm preparing to demolish the house into which the water supply goes, prior to building the new house. We're still living in that house and will live onsite in an outbuilding during the build, so need to maintain the utilities. The water meter was inside the old house so I wanted to relocate it out of the house and agreed with United Utilities it would go in the street by the stop valve. UU agreed that the supply to the current house (built in the 1960s) could be replaced under their lead replacement programme. I did it all at the same time and the way it worked was, I paid UU £82 survey cost for the meter relocation, paid a private moling company £785+VAT as described above, they submitted paperwork to UU to demonstrate the work had been done, UU paid me £550 grant under the lead replacement programme, and I paid UU £183 to remove the old meter from the house and install the new meter in the street. I got quotes for the moling, and they did the connection in the street and installed an Atplas box over the stop valve and all UU had to do was screw on the new meter. It all went very smoothly. I only talked to two moling companies and the other one was more expensive and was going to do less - they were just going to install the new MDPE pipe and leave me to arrange a plumber to bring the new supply into the house and were going to leave UU to do the connection in the street. This would have left me with having to coordinate work to ensure continuity of supply. Very happy with the moling company I chose and UU were easy to work with.

Just seen this highlighted on a tax & finance email I get, and couldn't see it mentioned here yet https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-diy-housebuilders-scheme-digitisation-of-claims-and-extending-time-limit/vat-digitisation-of-claims-and-extending-time-limit-for-diy-housebuilders-scheme From 5th Dec 2023 apparently: * The time limit (I think for all claims) will be 6 months from completion, not 3 * There'll be the option to claim online (which presumably will also let you see status etc) * They will apparently no longer require all the invoices at the time of submitting the claim. I assume that will put things on a similar footing to businesses, where they might inspect some claims/ask for a random sample of evidence, and potentially impose penalties etc if they discover you've claimed something you shouldn't have - they don't spell out exactly how that will work. So would still be important to make sure you have & have checked all the invoices, but no longer the need/risk to post off all the originals to HMRC and hope they arrive...

I managed to get a free day today to skim the bedroom and dressing room out Weathers not ideal But it’s a start

Correct. I built a 70sqm garage without planning. Dont even think about planning for extraction. Dont give the council a sniff of your plans. Wont happen in a domestic setting. For my paining i put a filter on the outlet so there is zero overspray. If you need to eliminate the smell, add a charcol filter to the output. Not cheap, but, trust me, much better than what will happen if you go down the planning route. Tell nobody anything.

30sqm has nothing to do with it. The 50% of garden does. You are confusing two entirely seperate subjects. You can build right up to the boundary if you want, though that does invoke a 2.5m height limit as opposed to 4. Its all in the link posted earlier. The reason most stuff is under 30sqm is to avoid the need to get tangled up in buiding control and the large increase in costs that invariably follow. I say again. planning and building control are disctinctly seperate things.

For multiple outbuildings as permitted development there are additional rules regarding spacing & the % of ground they occupy. Depending on budget, you may find it a challenge to find a property within budget that’s got a big enough garden for what you want. maybes a house with a garage so you can utilise the garage plus an outbuilding. I maximised the permitted development rules to build a barn/workshop. One half of it is vaulted double height the other half has an upper and lower section. The upper section is just storage of course. Obviously you’d need something with more windows.

Sounds like a commercial use, so if in a residential area, planning will be required no matter the size (even if an existing structure, as would be a change of use.) Might be better off leasing an industrial unit where you won't have so many hurdles?

If you are doing this for commercial gain and not a hobby, I would think you would struggle to get any planning for this in an urban environment. Having admitted you will need an extraction system because of the paint fumes, getting consent for this will be hard, if not impossible. Most car painters I know have all changed to water based paints due to regulations. Ive always had large workshops and storage at home and found it increasingly hard to not have the council knocking on my door weekly after a neighbour had been moaning. I would look look at how many times you actually need to come into London and find an area with good transport, but far outside the M25.

Buildings over 30 square metres will always need to be Building Regulation compliant.

Below 30 sq meters is building regs thing not planning if you are looking at “permitted development” (planning not needed) then look at this. https://www.planningportal.co.uk/permission/responsibilities/planning-permission/permitted-development-rights

@joe90@Conor Cheers lads, gives me more of a sense that I should pursue a change before sending out to tender. I can't see an issue since all that changes is around 12cm and that detail isn't on the planning drawings and neither is the pitch specified. Fingers crossed...

We raised our wall plate up 150mm at the last minute, but left ridge the same. Reduced the roof angle by about 3⁰ but hardly noticeable. Extra height at the eaves (only 1400mm) makes a huge difference.

That’s looking pretty good, fall on a shower or basin isn’t as critical as a soil pipe so any fall is ok. basin waste through wall and into other basil waste is fine, if the basin is on a pedestal then anywhere that works (and is out of sight)

Jury's still out @Nick Laslett - the unit is installed in the supply feed, but the water supply is not connected yet. Will report on any real world experiences. In the current cold snap, our upstairs rads seem to struggle a bit with the 45deg flow temp from the ASHP - probably could have done with sizing them up a little. Hoping using the ComfoPost to warm the air will help a little bit too, or at least offset the cooling due to inefficiencies in heat recovery.

Both refer to the current application as well as to previous applications. No-one else is affected. My house is the last connection to the sewer. It ends there. It was in general terms as to who would be responsible. I think there was a man-hole on my site for the sewer. I've noticed one in my neighbour's garden so the other would likely be in council property. Time to contact YW, architect and the builder.

I did just that on my build, only a few degrees made the difference I wanted, plus I don’t suspect fir a moment they will accurately measure your ridge height on completion 🤷‍♂️ ( next door was 1200mm above plans and nothing was said!!!!)

Shear links or stirrups are used to hold bars to form a cage for a ring beam

cts = centres, so 100mm apart. You can get the links fabricated as you will need a fair few.

Think yourself lucky, our suspended slab ended up with FOUR layers of A393 mesh. No idea re shear links though, sorry, but 100mm cts means 100mm centres, so spaced every 10cm.

Whatever you do, you need to make SURE you achieve 2 metre headroom above the stairs and on the landing. Check with your BCO I believe this is measured on the centreline of the stairs and landing so may be allowed to be lower at the edges.

Hi Mark, Yeah, was thinking that may be the case. All of them who have turned up have said it's an easy enough job as the garage is only about 6 years old, complies with buidling regs for the structure (not insulated, but cavity wall, proper roof trusses, pitched & tiled roof etc), even the electrics were inspected and signed off against. Pretty straight forward as far as I can; bathroom, bedroom and one open plan living space with a kitchenette. Yes it needs fully insulating and a couple of stud walls putting in, but nothing out of the ordinary. Will see if any come back in the next couple of weeks (not looking for it to be started this side of Christmas) but if they can't be bothered to come back with quotes when they say they will you start wondering about how they'll be when it comes to the job! Cheers.

I can't remember. I just know I tried to make one work a couple of times, and it wasn't viable. Perhaps it is cautiously specified, as digester soakaways are, whereas a klargester one is a 'thing' with a certificate.

Have to be a bit careful in the design, and the design terminology. There is a difference in zoning with an individual temperature control on that circuit, and zoning for a room with the pipework connected up to other room zones and all controlled by 1 temperature controller. With wet heating systems, there is always a minimum volume of water that is needed to make them work. Even if the minimum is achieved, then the heating system, whether a heat pump of a gas boiler, may still short cycle. Ideally you want the heat source on all the time it is needed, not switching on and off. If you connect that bathroom zone to another zone (basically you want one zone for the whole house, maybe two if two storey), then the volume is increased by default. With a properly designed heating system, the mean flow temperature is the same across all heat emitters, then you just change the size of the heat emitters to control the room temperature. Have you done a room by room heat loss calculation? If not, it is time to do one before you carry on.

Ha ! Why is everyone suggesting technical solutions here, when the issue is clearly that you can't blow (or suck) hard enough? You have a need for that versatile buildhub practitioner known as an elephant. There are two methods: 1 - Attach the elephant to the inside pipe, and then make it sneeze. Requires pepper and a tolerant elephant. 2 - Attach the elephant to the outside of the tap, put a clothes peg on it's trunk and take it off when it is desperate for a breath. At that point there will be a sharp intake of breath by the elephant and the water will be extracted from your piece of pipe. It is wise to have your running shoes with studs on at the time. Elephants can do 40kph. I believe we discussed this in the past when we were talking about getting ropes through ducts, as an alternative to using moles or pigs. An alternative is to have grown up playing the trombone, or as an apprentice town-crier. I did the former with the trumpet and I have a routine asthma test in 45 minutes, for which I am stood in good stead thereby. (More seriously, it sounds as if you should be OK.) Useful content: There are some styles of tap that have the turn handle on the outside and the valve deeper in the wall to keep it warmer. There are also things like this one which have a built in drain: https://www.arleymosssupplies.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=2711 If you go for a pump, is it suitable to use one that does your car tyres, or bicycle? I don't see why not. Ferdinand

Are you using proper cabinet fixing bolts rather than screws to fix to side cabinets? https://www.screwfix.com/p/inter-screws-m4-x-10-pack But cabinet backs are usually thin, non supporting “board”, are yours solid Wood @Pocster ? The Proper brackets fix to cabinet side member,s. frankly if the cabinets either side are fixed to the wall then supporting a bridge unit from them is suffice. (IMO)

It’s not installed yet.

IIRC it was around £2000. It worked fine, no smells, but you wouldn't want children playing in it. The maintenance consisted of thinning out the reeds every three or four years, which you had to be careful when doing, as you shouldn't get the water in any cuts, so it was a Marigolds job.

Here's a piccie of my temporary setup using the AirFlex15. The insulated duct is quite chunky. t the extent that a more perma-solution is not imo acceptable looking like that in my kitchen. I would either want it done as a real outlet hidden behind the unit going through the wall. In that case I think I am better with a real A2A one (inside or outside unit) and a 70mm connector.

Reed beds are useful .... but there are some down-sides to them - but that's too much detail at the moment. It will help you to read up on SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage) ... here's a good start https://www.susdrain.org/delivering-suds/using-suds/suds-components/wetlands/wetlands-overview.html

One sentence sums it up. "The Norwegians also benefit from well insulated houses" Which brings the conversation back to what do we do with the millions or poorly insulated houses in the UK. Our traditional answer when energy was cheap was just pump loads of heat into them as fast as it leaks out.

Will look fine once the decorators tidy it up. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

tank museum

Me, me, me, please, I live to break govt websites