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Latte. Is it pronounced "lartay" or "lattay"?

I'm with you on that! Instant is horrible. I like my Aeropress. I can move it between work and home easily, and it's sailed nearly half way around the world with me. And all things considered, it's cheap, even if you do need to use a kettle. I like my espresso perc pot too (a habit I too collected on holiday in Italy), but it's too much effort most of the time.

We've got a Sage machine with built in grinder. Takes time to use and a while to get setting right but with the right beans, it's better than most coffee shops. Nespresso should be banned in my humble opinion. The sheer wastefulness of a global scale should be deemed un acceptable. We buy a large bag and grind ourselves. One single bag waste for around 100 coffees rather than one capsule per coffee. Sister says they can send them to get recycled but that rather misses the point. That rant brings me to mine! Lol. Beans to cup surely got to be far better for the environment? A coffee machine is a luxury but art what cost?

I deliberately did not have a built in coffee machine.... as you say bit of a white elephant. I’m afraid I hate instant coffee, would rather drink water. Milk covers a lot of sins in coffee.

Don’t be silly, do I look like a bloke that runs his bath from his phone??

Sorry I was not clear - you will need to update your planning I just meant that they won't refuse if the reasons are structural and the overall envelope is the same in the end. I do reiterate the VAT issue. It if is a rework then VAT is payable unless you stay within the rules of how much can remain, which isn't much!

No more greenfield development until all brown field sites utilised and empty homes brought back into use

I've done similar. Thermahood lip will be intumescent mastic sealed to the foil. Around the Thermahood I'll fill with expanding foam. Cable will come up in 20mm steel conduit.

Lancashire Brick Ian Shard (MD)

We had the same at another house when our daughter was aged about 8, when she saw what had happened with the dead bird she just said it should have looked where it was going!!

@Pete Don't listen to @Russell griffiths I cleared an entire house through recycling, giving away bits on gumtree and the local council recycling centre without paying a penny. This was approx. 5-6 regular skips worth of rubbish ?

The only niggle here is with a trailer, or a commercial vehicle, you have to sign a form and hand it in to declare the waste you are tipping is private waste not commercial. So my first visit with the trailer goes like this: Can I have your form please? What form? The council's form to declare that is it personal waste. Oh I didn't know about that. Give me a form please and I will fill it in. We don't keep the forms here. Where do I get the form? From the council office in town? So you want me to drive into town, find somewhere to park with the trailer, go and get the form, fill it in, then come back and you will allow me to tip it? Just go and tip your waste and bring a form next time...... An amusing one one from Oxfordshire, BIL had done some gardening. He had a 1 ton builders bag in the back of his Landrover full of garden waste. He pulls up outside the garden waste skip and starts dragging this bag out of the Landy. An operative approached at great speed "you can't tip that much". BIL points to sign that says "Garden waste, 1 car, 1 bag" How many cars have I got? How many bags have I got? Operative sulks off in a huff. BIL no longer welcome there.

Sometimes it seems these places are designed specifically to deter people from using them. And then they wonder why fly tipping happens.

Espresso on the induction, cheap as chips. The place we got the kitchen from was trying to sell us a built in one, circa £4000 and the coffee was awful. You had to strip it down and clean all the parts including the milk container and pipework on a regular basis, needless to say we did not buy one of those.

We've got a jar of something in the back of a cupboard somewhere...just for guests...we dont get many.

we've a Delonghi B2C, a Perfecta. It's the more basic one with no milk jug but it does have a couple of useful additions over our previous Magnifica (which was used heavily for six or seven years maybe before deciding to have an appetite for heaters...). It's got an Eco mode which keeps the boiler warm without having enough waste heat to warm the cupwarmer. It'll dispense into a full height mug at full coffee dose it'll fill said mug to almost-espresso strength.

The red stuff is slightly more flexible than the blue. They've both got the smooth white interior.

They have been in about 4 years but the house has only been occupied for coming up to a year (and still a LONG way from finished)

we've a jura bean to cup from costco, used daily and produces a good cup of coffee. we use taylors espresso beans £14/kg though local sainsburys are now stocking their own 1kg bags at £9 will try to see how good. one of the nicest coffees was lavazza crema and something but haven't found it recently. type of coffee makes a bit difference to crema

I got one of these in 2015 and it’s USED EVERY DAY for about 4-6 cups a day it’s never stopped working and still produces fantastic coffee. I don’t use the milk thingy ! As I like a strong black coffee with a good crema. It’s just started to leek but this is just the water seal that I intend to replace. It cost me £230 in 2015 but now cost £350. If I was going to buy another one I would get the same one or something very similar. These are the beans that are fantastic if you love black coffee !

Welcome to the forum! For a VAT reclaim for a new build you can only keep the foundations and a single facade noted in the planning permission as needing to be retained due to its architectural significance. Looks like the above may count as a conversion however which is also able to be zero rated as long as the existing property meets certain conditions. The main one is that no one has lived in the structure for 10+ years. This includes the structure being used as a domestic garage. HMRC will check your planning permission to check that it meets the criteria so it’s worth ensuring that is in order before you start. There is a sub forum for VAT reclaims that will appear once you have made 10 posts.

We have a De'Longhi Autentica bean to cup in the office, I think it was about £400. It's not missed a beat in 3 years and it must make about 20 coffees every day.

Our Bialetti is probably 25 years old. You can buy all the spares, e.g the O ring that seals the join lasts about 2 years, and once I dropped it and broke the handle, I bought a new replacement handle from someone on ebay. Do let us know if it works on an induction hob, I suspect being aluminium that it won't.

Being of Italian heritage I grew up with Bialetti Moka stovetop espresso perc pots. I love Italian coffee, the drip ( as the Aussies call filter) is not for me. Have all sizes of cafetière to hand but again does not give me that real Italian coffee taste. Maybe I should dig out the old Bialetti...doubt it would work on the Bora though! Thanks on Krups and Jura @vivienz, interesting. Lizzie. .........#firstworldproblems#

I have had a Meile integrated bean to cup, which I would not recommend as it was rather demanding, the coffee was not great, and they cost a lot. I have had 3 freestanding bean to cup - a Jura, which looked good and performed OK, a Delongi. similar to the Jura but did not look so flashy and currently on a Melitta, which does the best milk frothing. Melitta is best IMO.

I used to have a gaggia machine years ago that cost £500 in a sale ?, it was good and lasted about 5 years, I currently use a Delonghi summut or other bought in a charity shop fir £25 and can’t fault it ?

The highest scoring coffee machine in "Which" is a Delonghi scultura which is about a tenth of the price of a Jura https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/household-appliances/small-kitchen-appliances/coffee-machines-and-accessories/coffee-machines/delonghi-scultura-ecz351bk-coffee-machine-black-10012308-pdt.html It takes either ground coffee or capsules, so if you wanted to use coffee beans you would have to grind them yourselves, but then again if you only drink black coffee, much of the functionality in a bean to cup machine would go to waste. Bean to cup machines are also very big !

See my thread here As you will see from that I am on course to see £250 of savings per year so should have a payback of about 6 years. A few points: My system is smaller than Jeremy's and we have some serious shading issues from trees at the moment, something I will start addressing this winter with the start of a pruning and thinning regime. Because I DIY installed it I won't be eligible to claim the new export payment, but at the last count I had only exported less than £10 worth, so in my case it really would not have been worth paying extra for an MCS install just to claim such a tiny amount. @Robert Clark You mention the PV helping your heating. Sadly it won't. At the time you most need heating in the middle of winter, the PV will be producing very little. Our house has a worst case heat input a little over 2Kw provided by a 5KW Air Source Heat Pump. Most of our self usage comes from using the washing machine, dish washer and tumble dryer in the daytime (one at a time) the house base load, timing the ASHP to only heat hot water after 10AM when PV generation is reasonable, and lastly dumping any excess to the immersion heater to further heat the hot water.

Another variable to add in to the mix is if your house has a need for active cooling. For the past few weeks some of our PV generation has been powering both the MVHR cooling heat pump and the ASHP in cooling mode. These two combined would cost around £0.18 to £0.20 per hour to run if we didn't have PV.

This question seems to pop up every now and again I think Dave and Declan answered the question best If you can get the panels cheap and fit yourself It’s worth it But the figures don’t stack up if you use a company to supply and install Our sap producers 7 to 9k install £255 per year saving It would also add 3 points to our final sap rating 88-91 With electric vehicles perhaps a better option

In terms of payback, it really depends on how much of what you generate you can use. Without diverting excess to DHW or car charging, my experience (and others) of a 3.68 kWp system is that you would use around 25% of what you generate and export the rest. If you can change behaviour and only use appliances throught the day you can push this up. Divert excess generation to heating DHW and you will use more / offset other energy use. Whether it's worth paying for an MCS install vs a DIY install is debatable. The only real benefit to the former will be the ability to claim an export payment when the revised payment scheme is rolled out. That will be a simple calculation - is it worth paying an extra £1K - £2K to get back £100 a year. A smaller DIY system, say up to 2 kWp may well be the optimum size. Don't discount buying second hand PV panels. @ProDave and I did this, and for us, has worked well / brought down the cost of our systems quite considerably.

We generate around 6 MWh/year from an array that, if installed new today, would have a net cost of around £5k to £6k (allowing for the saving in roofing cost from having roof-integrated panels). With no FiT, just export payments, and assuming these would be metered and paid at about 5p/kWh, then we would generate a direct income of around £120/year from exported energy. The remainder would be self-consumption, used to charge the car, provide hot water, run the house during the day, etc, during the useful generation months. We often have "zero import" days during the summer, with the whole house running for 12 hours or more from self-generated power, all of which offsets electricity use at peak rate. Without PV we would shift some loads, like charging the car, running the washing machine, etc to the off-peak rate. The value of our self-generated energy is around £540/year, but if we were to load shift some stuff to E7, because we didn't have PV, then that would shift to maybe £450/year. Total saving for us from having PV (ignoring FiT) is therefore around £660/year, but if we didn't have it and shifted some stuff to E7 that would reduce to about £570/year. It still looks as if a PV system could have a payback time of around 10 years or so, which seems to stack up reasonably well, given that the panels should last 20 to 30 years. The investment in a battery system is far less clear cut. At best it might break even in terms of whole life cost, but most probably there would be no saving at all. Still worth doing if you place a value on having standby power in the event of a power cut, though, assuming the battery system supports this (not all do).

I would doubt the foundations will be anything but poor, certainly not good enough for two story, have you got adequate headroom inside, the time you add 225mm in height to the existing. I think i would consider having it all marked marked out by a survey company and then ripp it all down and rebuild on the exact same footprint. I think i would get your new planning through and have and have a good talk with building control.

I am not a good photographer so bear with me on photo quality, I probably could have done better with the refelections. This is my inside uplighting at the sliders. I have a tiny little led spot set into the floor at each end of the opening. Outside I have the same tiny little led spots in the soffit. It is very effective just wish I could have go a better pic!

Looks very interesting, I would say special care would be needed for something so spread out for Energy usage in particular. But it will be fab to live in. I would raise a flag and say to balance any inspirational architectural aspirations with your feet on the ground. Example .. the Gasworks by Chris Dyson in Upper Slaughter is up for umpteen awards, but it only just scraped a D in the EPC stakes. In a few years that will probably prevent it being rented out, perhaps even for holidays. And it took them 2 years to sell it. https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property-history/the-gasworks/upper-slaughter/cheltenham/gl54-2jt/41509827 It has a fair amount of sustainability wibble attached to the architectural-bollocks, but in practical terms sustainable it is not, as the Energy efficiency is well below the national average. https://www.architecture.com/find-an-architect/chris-dyson-architects/london/gasworks “The introduction of a very carefully-considered architectural concept into the Gloucestershire countryside; one which is of national significance and distinction in its approach to quality and sustainabilty, notably the integration of internal and external factors.” Ferdinand

What exactly does your existing permission say? And what does the new application for a two storey house say you want to do? I disagree with Mike. If you only have permission for a conversion but knock the buildings down the planners may well come back and demand a new planning application. They will point out you have permission for a conversion not a knock down and rebuild. They may grant it or could be mean and say that now the buildings have gone you are trying to get permission for a new house in the country side which is against policy. Its unfair but it has happened before. People have been forced to go to appeal taking time and money. What I would do is check the foundations and if necessary amend your application to a knock down and rebuild.

New decision day agreed of 29th July. And the timetable is finished!!

This is exactly what we experienced with our glazed front gable. The black reflected interior at night made the whole of our entrance hall seem very exposed at night, as we couldn't help thinking that people outside were peering in (not very likely). We opted to fit electric Duette blinds and they have really transformed this space when they are down. They don't do much to reduce solar gain, but having a cream coloured covering for the otherwise black glazing makes that whole area feel a lot more comfortable.

The glass will appear black and reflect tne interior if lit. Even a low level of outside illumination will make all the difference.

I think it's called threadcert nsert Nuts Type D M6 x 20mm 50 Pack" and thought of you! https://www.screwfix.com/p/insert-nuts-type-d-m6-x-20mm-50-pack/61859?kpid=61859&ds_kid=92700045993219437&gclsrc=aw.ds&ds_rl=1241687&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1249413&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1MXpBRDjARIsAHtdN-1Q-9brjOTxQIfIBPWjxZdyv-l4QJjujBh67zy7QK3flQtBzeotILIaAhTGEALw_wcB Although mine are m8 and I was given them so I don't know where they were bought

I would not export a PME earth to a metal shed. I would treat it as a "caravan" (for the same reasons) and connect it to a local TT earth (earth rod) with the metal of the shed bonded to the TT earth. In this case you connect the SWA to the PME earth at the origin with a normal SWA gland and Banko, but use a plastic gland at the shed end so it clamps onto the SWA sheath but makes no electrical conection to the SWA.

What a bodge! If we each had a pound for every time we heard a contractor say, "It will be fine!". The issue is the builder probably doesn't understand it - won't understand air dynamics and is too ignorant to see his own mistake. The warren of bends and T's and small bore is not going to work. Basically you are meant to sure 110mm soil pipe or similar sized duct. Get that ripped out and have him start again. He probably spent more on solvent weld bends, tee's and pipe than a piece of soil would have cost. If you need to use leverage tell your builder to do it right you can comment building control will not accept it.

I don't know if anyone is close to Shropshire but I'd been in to a local firm called Excelclad at Prees https://www.excelclad.co.uk/ and got chatting to a local contractor who came round to chat about our plans (all before we got permission) just to check out my thoughts on materials, insulation etc and I was able to drive by a property they had done work on. I was concerned as we have 10 Velux windows on our plans... The contractor details are https://www.facebook.com/www.jcooperandsons.org.uk/ As I said I've not used them but maybe worth checking them out specifically if you are looking at a corrugated steel roof like we are.

I bought one of those and it's still sitting in it's box unused. I have never found it necessary to increase the extract fan speed.

I have found that no boost is needed in shower/bath rooms. I just leave the flow rate at the same low rate and there are no condensation problems.

This is what I did. The SE are ultimately the customer of the soil survey as they'll use it for loading calcs, slab design (i.e. whether piles are needed). They wrote the spec and tendered it out. We had a mix of 10m probes and 6m cores plus gas and water monitoring for 3 months after, plus contamination testing (for LA condition and muck away classification). We had to have a second survey due to some errors in the first and general uncertainty about the ground conditions (suspected made ground based on historical maps). It's still way cheaper than starting to dig a hole and then seeing what you find and if it's going to be too expensive to build it, you can drop the idea. Our basement is one of the best parts of the house tbh, Just over 100m2 split into two pairs of interconnecting rooms - kids use one half for TV, music etc and the other half is a gym and craft room/reading room etc. Lovely bright space, always at 20oc. Cost was £1000/m2 before fit out but we had a very accessible detached site and had demolished the original so nothing in the way.

Take proper professional advice from three specialist survey companies. Ask for references. Check their professional qualifications. Ask them to list membership of a relevant professional body Check the relevant standards policed by that organisation Check the currency of their Professional Indemnity Insurance .(ask to see their certificate of insurance) Network : ask other people about the company. When I did that I was surprised at the directness of some of the answers. Once that's done you have enough information to make an informed choice. And reduced your exposure to unnecessary risk. Good luck!

Most of the concerns you have about ventilation will be handled by any well-specced and installed MVHR. If you want comfort cooling, then an MVHR with built in air-to-air heat pump will provide a modest amount of cooling, but nowhere near enough to overcome a house with a fair bit of solar gain. If you think overheating may be an issue, then it's almost certainly likely to be cheaper and more effective to just fit an air-to-air heat pump. These are almost always reversible, so will also provide supplementary heating if needed. Tesla isn't the only player in the home storage market, and there are other products available that will provide uninterruptible power to a designated set of circuits. Personally I'm not at all convinced that the Powerwall 2 is good value, and neither am I convinced that it's user interface is that great, having looked at how it tries to automate stuff with hidden control functions that I think would be better made accessible to the user. Getting a house to run in winter without grid power is damned difficult. We have a 6.25 kWp PV array and there are plenty of days in winter where we don't generate enough to cover the house background load, let alone have any excess to store. It wouldn't matter what sized battery system we had we still wouldn't be able to charge it from PV for much of the time in winter. In winter we intend to just charge the battery from E7 off peak electricity (something that's a bit flaky with the "intelligence" built in to the Powerwall, it seems). The idea is that we hope to be able to power the whole house, 24h/day, from off-peak electricity. Being able to charge the battery from PV in summer will be a bonus. Our house is all-electric, and has a pretty low energy demand (the EPC is A107, with an energy "consumption" of -35kWh/m² per year)

I had the offer of some help from a neighbour so decided to crack on with the roof sheets. These are corrugated sheets 4x1m and in the thicker 0.7mm spec, so fairly heavy and awkward things to handle. I did get the first sheet up and fixed by myself but am not daft enough to turn down an offer of help when it appears! When I bought the roofing, I had recently read @ProDave's less than glowing review of Jewsons' plastic headed roofing screws, so made a point of asking what would be supplied. The guy at the BM was adamant that everybody these days prefers the plastic headed stuff, quicker to install, no caps to come loose, just a question of getting the right bit to drive them in with. He even did a straw poll of the people in the shop at the time... Anyway, how do the screws work in real life? They certainly do not self drive, not by a long shot. And so far I have stripped the heads off two of them, although in both cases I was able to back the screw off and remove it using pliers. So it seems you need a decent hole punched in the sheet, which slows down installation somewhat. Getting the sheets up on the roof wasn't too hard once I figured out a method- I built a 'stretcher' to hold each sheet, and this is then run up a pair of wooden guide rails onto the roof. Doing the last sheet will be a bit tricky as we will have to pull the 'stretcher' out from under it, instead of moving the sheet to the side as we have been doing so far. In other news, the hole for the flue is now made- a bit daunting cutting a whopping great hole in the roof! I'll write another blog post about that as part of the stove installation,