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After reading the thread below I went looking for how to properly hold a bigger drill. I'm sharing in case other beginners like me need to know how to safely hold a drill - and that a clutch won't kick in magically but needs you to provide resistance.

Hi, currently in Dorset, but moving to Caithness hopefully in the next month

I have an "acquaintance" who works for one of the large developers and has responsibility for finding sites and managing the site portfolio. They typically sit on land where they know developing it would not provide the maximum return on their investment; the future value conundrum. They only have so much capacity to build new housing, and certainly couldn't start on all the land they have available to them even if they were able to get permission for all of it. So they only bring forward land when the circumstances suit them, when precedents have been set in local appeals or in case law challenging appeals that mean they stand a good chance of getting permission when they might not have previously, or where the planning laws change in their favour. The problem with that is that there may be a wide range of other "developers" that might be treated more favourably from a planning perspective, who just don't have access to that land that the large developers are sitting on. So a community housing scheme or a group of self-builders might be able to get permission as under-served groups where the large developer wouldn't, but they just can't access the land. So here's my idea. If you are a developer, you should still be allowed to buy land, and can keep the land you have, but you must either turn that into deliverable housing within 5 years or you must relinquish the future rights for your company to develop the land for housing, and you must offer it for sale at the price you paid for it plus reasonable costs.

Some bedtime reading, note the 300mm hole to be BELOW THE INCOMING PIPE FROM THE BUILDING . The 300mm cube is purely to measure the drainage of the ground your digging in. 👍 https://www.copeland.gov.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/percolation_surface.pdf

I appreciate all the comments replying to my intro - funnily enough your comment was spot on - the garage would be for a car, a boat and trailer, and be remote from my house - so one of the attractions to an ICF would be that it includes a 'concrete wall' from a security perspective. I appreciate I could get a similar result with dense concrete hollow blocks, but I thought I would explore the possibilities with an ICF. Garage would probably be 9 m x 9 m or 12 m x 3 m. I'l post in the appropriate forum, rather than intros in due course. Graham

When measuring for windows and doors I cut a baton to the with and heigh and allow 10 mil Start will the largest opening Most windows are very easy to fit But if you don’t want to self fit Tgen ask a joiner You will get a far better install off a joiner Most window fitters tend to be quick and rough

Non Squareness of the openings I believe is a common error with diy. Ie measuring the widest bit. I can only recall only one error by a professional out of hundreds of units. He immediately promised to get a replacement in a few days, but I changed the drawing and everyone was happy. Contrast with ordering our own windows. Got 2 wrong. Our cost. Moral. It is someone's risk. You can't have the best of both worlds.

Re-building a 1970's split roof style house situated in a 1/4 acre plot beside Belfast lough. The project is designed to be as close to passifhaus standards as possible and to be completed end of September 2024. Innovations are the use of Cork insulation sourced directly from Portugal and the use of a Nulok roofing system for my PV. \the house is situated only 50 feet from the sea and is upside down living with the bedrooms downstairs and living area upstairs with a large cantilevered balcony and huge triple glassed window area to capture the views and changes that we get to the natural light here in Northern Ireland. The house itself once finished will look something similar to a classic HuffHaus, but purely by coincidence. I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who has fitted a NuLok system as I've had a few issues getting info out of the supplier.

Yes planning is devolved. The guy is currently the local Labour councillor so does ave some impact on planning issues. Nevertheless, Labour describe this as their "Plan for Britain" and their Scottish manifesto has on it "Planning reform to get Scotland building" It is not unusual for devolved policy to be similar to England and Wales policies. It is Labour policy to ease planning and build more houses everywhere in Britain. There is a good chance that Labour will form the next Scottish government. The point anyway is that politicians are hypocrites. It is clearly Labour policy to encourage building houses, but how many Labour MPs, or for that matter MPs of all parties with similar aspirations to see more houses built, have simultaneously stood for more building on a national level whilst being against specific building on a local level. This use of local planning as a way to canvas votes is the very reason that planning rules have to be changed to reduce local political interference.

Oh I missed this bit in your original post - we did exactly that (fitted a water softener) after seeing the scale in the tank It did exactly that - dissolved and removed scale in other parts of the system (in our case the cold water header tank in the loft (outlet fitting) and we had an unexpected surprise a year later)

There is a dilemma there for sure For me prevention is always better than cure - so I'd investigate the internals however I could - Drain down and remove outlet or inlet pipes and use one of those cheap plug in camera probes that work with a phone?

Yeah, I hope they find a way to build more houses, but pretty much every government for the last 50 years has made housing 'a priority'. Also, you have the entrenched planners, appeals system, nimbys etc in place and even if you invent new policy that doesn't mean you will change the system at all quickly.

>>> Maybe we 7 +1 should write to our mp. I'm up for that. My other half works for government, so will ask her the best approach.

Prior to the election I got into an argument with our local Labour candidate, now MP and a Facebook group trying to stop a new development being built a couple of miles away. Funny how labour policy is to try and ignore local objections, yet he was massively in favour of them in the run up to the election. My argument was that the land where building was proposed was within the bounds of Edinburgh (inside the city bypass which is normally considered the boundary of the town with greenbelt on the other side). Thus it has access to buses, shops etc and would be a much more sustainable place to build than out of town. Local residents have got up an almost 1000 people Facebook group and similar number of objections to a new development. Their objections are nonsense in my opinion. Edinburgh has a target of 35,000 houses to be built. A lot of land has been allocated to this target outside of town on the greenbelt where there is literally no infrastructure at all, no schools, roads, buses, nothing. The locals' argument is that it is hard to get registered with a doctor locally and into the local school (just built with a nearby development) and that traffic will get worse. I pass through the area all the time. Traffic is much less bad than the main area of development around the airport and it there are no doctors with capacity for the 35,000 houses due to be built no matter where they are in the town, so this is in now way a reasonable argument to not build in this area, it is just a straw man argument from NIMBYs. I put up a very robust argument against every point they made. I doubt they will get permission this time, but I reckon they will five to ten years down the road. Indeed every contentious plot of land in the town in the last 20 years has ended up being built on, just later than expected after years of arguing. Perhaps this shows what a real waste of time and money it all is. Usually stuff gets built eventually.

>>> ghost voltage I'm thinking it could also be a crossed neutral. You have RCDs in that consumer unit? Another simple test - turn CU on and all MCBs off. Your stray voltage should be zero. Turn the MCBs on one-by-one leaving your suspect circuit til last. See when the ghost voltage turns up.

First try the obvious. Where will the rainwater pipe be? Dig down to that level for access. Then hand dig your 300 x 300 x 300 test pit. Fill it and let it soak away or not, before the formal test. If you want, try another hole or 2, in possible locations. Near a hedge or trees might have help from gaps left by roots. Record your tests as the bco may just accept this. Be safe. 1m deep holes can collapse and kill.

@Alan Ambrose , @MikeSharp01 , @Mattg4321 , @MJNewton , thanks for the replies. I have carried out the various tests after leaving it off for half an hour. When MCB switched off L/N = 9V, L/E = 9V, N/E = 0V. Turned the whole CU off and L/N = 0V. So my conclusion is that, it is, as suggested 'ghost voltage'. Every day is a school day.

Those cill heights are high then. "Does anyone check..." That's a hard one because some BCO's may think of it and others may not - you're in the realms of an individual's attitude and interpretation. I could be more certain if the opening height was compliant. In your situation I'd submit a "full plans" application - you can do the drawings yourself as they'll only be floorplans of before and after. You'll need the SE's calcs for the beam (but you'll want them anyway). This would allow you to get BC's attitude to the situation on paper (i.e comments back as part of the checking process) rather than having done the work and getting any bad news on site which could be the case with a Building Notice.

Yes, as above it'll almost certainly be due to the ghost/stray voltage that is picked up when using high-impedence test meters (the MTM01 has an input impedence of 10MΩ). Some further reading here: How Stray Voltage Affects Multimeter Measurements

Disappointed in the thread title; thought you were pulling off a heist... 🤣

exactly this. chippy while more expensive will take more care.

I am sure a self serving internet influencer will come along and show us how we have been doing it all wrong, and their simple hack will allow you to drill the perfect hole.

Should anyone be interested... This wasn't half as bad as I'd built it up to be (in my mind) Starting at the top l, the brickwork came down quickly, two afternoons to get to below corbel level. A handy hint, if you want to stop loosening bricks below the course your removing then stop hitting them on the face and take them out front the ends. Rebuilding was pretty quick, I used the screw in wall ties, ant it was much easier to put them before the blockwork than afterwards. Figure out and mark on the wall roughly whereabouts your ties are going, then when it's time to put the block in; offer it up(no mortar bed yet) mark and drill the tie hole15mm above the top of the block, then mortar bed down and lay the block.

@David001 I’m no expert, I’ve laid EPDM once but I don’t think your solution will last, mainly down to the detail Ive highlighted in your picture below. I don’t think you’d get an effective or long lasting seal on those corners and the roof will fail in the not too distant future. If it were me I’d do exactly what you are doing, namely asking on here, and if that failed I’d be looking at a minimum of bonding a strip of EPDM to the underside of that which is already in place and then have the correct gutter detail installed correctly, with the correct amount of EPDM in that gutter trim. Your ‘upstand to gutter’ detail could still be problematic. Ideally rip it off and start again but I can understand the reluctance to do that. Someone with more knowledge and experience with EPDM will perhaps be along soon to give you an alternative viewpoint and/or solution. Alternatively, ask an EPDM supplier what they recommend as a solution, the video link I posted came from a company that were very helpful when I asked questions.

Don't use them, unless you enjoy taking full risk on your shoulders. I chose to use a supplier that would measure, supply, and install. If they got measurements wrong or things didn't align as expected it was down to them to fix. I paid extra but slept at nights Supply only and a big chunk of money - you carrying full risk, no thank you.

Hi @SilverShadow Here's some over kill: https://www.phxwater.co.uk/guide-to-domestic-water-tank-cleaning-and-disinfection/ Good luck Marvin

Aye up Terry. Which W above is meant to read P, suspect the second, or have I missed something?

Well.. I knocked the old garage down and dug up the wonky slab. 2 grab trucks later a bit of concrete and this is where I am currently at.

I have all the solutions to everything, bare with me …. prisons . Execute all those mofo’s . That would then be a good incentive to potential future criminals . Those empty prisons ( now ) can be converted into accommodation. Don’t thank me - send money ( PayPal is preferred )

No! It's not on our farm. It's a site about 2 miles away. We know the farmer who owns the field to the rear but their pond is over 200m away and up a hill!!