Leaderboard

“Prior Approval Required and Granted”!!! Thank you all for your help and comments on this thread, which proved very helpful. Today we received the best possible outcome and are thrilled! On to the next challenge of seeing through the development, very exciting and daunting all the same!

Perhaps.. https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Stop-Influence-Planning-Permission/dp/0953348903 https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Object-planning-application-appeal/dp/1912384108 Although you may know most of it. You also need to check the closing date for comments/objections. If time is short you could start by raising an objection that neighbours have not been notified as required and demand they restart the statutory consultation period. If other houses are affected I recommend you help them with their objection letters as these need to contain valid planning reasons for rejection. Most people prattle on about things that carry no weight such as loss of a view or devaluation of property. Mention things like.. Out of keeping/not in an industrial area/outside village boundary but near houses. Noisy industry inappropriate near a cemetry. Any noise complaints from their current place? Access near dangerous bends in the road? Speed limit?

The problem with Graven Hill is that a plot for a 3 bed house is £185K with a plot size of 217 m2 and you have to use their contactors to build the foundations.

Dragging this thread kicking and screaming back up to date and on topic. We love our Sunamp and are definitely in the ‘marry’ camp though I suspect what follows will make most readers think we are nuts. We had the Sunamp on site for 10 months before it was finally commissioned and when it was finally commissioned there was a click, a couple of lights in the control unit and that was it, 30 mins later it was producing hot water. That first full charge was all we gave it for a week or two (we weren’t living there) and it was only towards the end of the second week that it became obvious that the water temperature was dropping. We hadn’t used it for much, washing up and the like, but I was quite surprised at how long it was able to produce hot water for. I’ve never treated a UVC in the same way so no idea if that would continue to produce hot water for the best part of two weeks after initially getting up to temperature. Would it? All was well for a month or so charging up every time the sun came out, and if the sun couldn’t be bothered to shine then we didn’t charge it. Then it stopped working. In the control box the LED’s were telling us that there was a ‘temperature sensor fault’. The only reset button was not the issue. A call to Sunamp and their technical department got back to me quickly. The problem was diagnosed as a failure of the 4 core temperature sensor that slides down a thin tube in the centre of the PCM. They sent an electrician out to confirm that, and then sent him back to refit a new one so everything is back up and running and hunky dory at the moment. If that fails again, or any other part does, then I’m sure my good lady will insist on a divorce, from the Sunamp to start with I guess, because when that was down there was no hot water, apart from the Quooker. Actually the Quooker was great, I could still do the washing up because you can get it to dispense boiling water and cold at the same time so even without the Sunamps help it is a perfect mixer tap. But probably a bit of a stretch to have a bath that way! Has anyone else experienced a failure of the temperature sensor? Is it likely that it was faulty and a few charges killed it? Could our ‘charge every fortnight if we felt like it’ policy have killed it? Any other ideas as to why that bit of wire and gubbins would have failed? One other thing (if anyone has got this far) when it was first commissioned the LED’s never showed ‘cold start active’. When the replacement temperature sensor was fitted there was still no ‘cold start active’ indication from the LED’s but on starting after the replacement temperature sensor was fitted the cracking from the PCM as it started to melt was louder than I’d heard before. Much louder.

I used the wunda clip track also. Stuck great on the EPS, although where there was a kick at the loops I used staples also. If you screw the clip track down it will work OK, just a bit long winded but you'd only need a few screws per clip track.

About a year ago I went for a kitchen design consultation with John Lewis. Complete waste of time. The context of my visit was that I had installed DIY Kitchens in the last two places we'd lived and members of my family and friends of ours had done the same so we were quite familiar with their product and fairly satisfied, but I was starting to tire of the DIY Kitchens aesthetic. It's probably one of only two criticisms I have of them. They have 9 or 10 different ranges, with the additional option of colour matching any RAL or Farrow and Ball colour on their painted range, but in terms of more interesting contemporary designs, they are quite limited. John Lewis on the other hand had a very attractive looking kitchen on their website which was a blend between an in frame and a more contemporary look which was exactly what I was looking for. But when I turned up at the consultation with my DIY Kitchens plan that I'd generated myself on the planner, and asked JL to recreate that in the look of the kitchen they had that I liked, many aspects of my layout was just not possible for JL. They are incredibly limited in terms of the unit offering versus DIY Kitchens. DIY Kitchens' other issue is that there is no official option to make simple adjustments to the units. For example, in all (or at least all the ranges I've looked at) their wall units come in a 300mm depth only. This might be a new development because they definitely used to sell a deeper wall unit. I don't particularly like deep wall units unless they are pull outs, but in certain situations a slightly deeper unit would be helpful. Unofficially, one can sometimes request bespoke fabrication. I'm not sure how they determine whether or not they want to make it, the website just says they decide on a case by case basis. I've actually just emailed to ask them if they will make a set of 6 wall units for me that are 330mm in depth. That's a non standard size, but I would have accepted 350mm or possibly even 360mm. But stay clear of John Lewis - they are even more limited than DIY!

Look in the local authority planning portal. The approved documents should include a material schedule.

This one https://www.karndean.com/en-gb/floors/products/rp90-fresco-light-oak Went for the Da Vinci range due to the better wear layer.

I cant see any reason why it has to be ply, you could use Moisture Resistant MDF. Im guessing the boarding is to give some protection to the pipework and distribute floor loads.

Get a system boiler off the gas, with immersion back up.

When the Daily Mail asks a question in a headline e.g. "Is this the new blah.." the answer is always no.

You will be able to get enough fall from the bottle gullies without any more fittings.

Sorry I meant to say stick to the radon. They stick very well as it's a smooth flat surface they're sticking too. It just will means you'll have to pay extra care and attention to getting it flat and even. If you've a giant space that's flat its easier but if you've a lot of load bearing internal walls or popup's it makes it more time consuming. Just pay extra care to getting it flat and even and folding it tight into the corners. The weight of the filled UFH pipes will help.

You only need to cut out a small section top and bottom, just jam in a wood saw or bread knife and cut down the side of the foam, you will need to put the new bits in in two sections as I don’t think you will get the new insert in in one bit... put the filler triangle in first (1) and foam it in and then put the last bit (2)in between the remaining insulation (3) and the triangle insert. Foam and tape. I used 70mm over the top on my last project and made my own washers out of 5mm ply - bandsaw and pillar drill and 10 minutes later I have 100 washers.... away as I was not having a service void in the roof section I drove the washers in below the surface of the insulation by 5+ mm and then foam over the top, stick a bit of tape on and then glue plasterboard over the top.... obviously if your having a service void then you can leave the washers proud.

I’ve had one from them, no problems apart from delivered a day later than planned. Kitchen units were equal to that of Howdens according to my fitter. Somethings they liked such as sink unit brace was the other way up so didn’t have to be cut out and some bits they didn’t. Howdens legs can be adjusted from inside the unit rather than twisting the leg underneath. I recommend them to other people of which 4 have been purchased without any trouble.

I’m definitely expecting a PD complaint at some stage as I back onto about 10 different houses. Chance are high and the least I can do is actually meet the rules. For the roof, I’ll get some boards for a deck when I order my decking structure and look at it in a few weeks. Will fill the joints as best I can for the time being. I have a spare 80sq m of DPM to put on top if I need to.

If it stays flexible (I think Icynene is flexible) then it should. PUs over expand during curing and continue to shrink for months, this can cause problems if the bond between timber and foam fails. Water is often used as the foaming agent.

Sounds to me like you are building in a thermal bridge. If you can use insulating block for the wall above the floor then why not through the floor too? I would avoid aircrete above the floor, they tend to crack badly

It's unnecessary IMO, as you'll not be putting such a thermal break in the rising masonry work. Just install a robust perimeter insulation to keep the heated screed from losing heat to the walls and you'll be fine.

We managed to take all services apart from wastes from the downstairs utility to an upstairs hot press through a 600 x 150 opening in the Slab.this required a bit of planning but it worked fine. The electric cables and MVHR all went straight up to a service void of 88mm under the roof trusses and eventually dropped vertically into the sockets and outlets. I drilled 2x150mm holes for the wastes through the slab after with an SDS and a chisel (i love suffering). My time would have been better spend pinpointing the opes to the supplier and letting them do it initially. PS our supplier limited us to 300mm from a 1200 slab so the opening had to be across 2 slabs.

Yes cut them at an angle so they fit flat against the wall plate

It’s not great for dogs in truth. Mine don’t go on it much as they are generally in the tiled areas but they do slip more than on tiles and it’s also more noisy. The best hard flooring I had for dogs was Karndean in my old house.

I was surprised that even siematic is using chipboard (by default, I think MDF/solid are optinos). Of course there are different quality levels but still, dip it in water and it'll 'melt'..

Yes some laminates are better than others, but generally the board/timber underneath is of very similar quality. Cheap hinges and fittings let a lot of kitchens / windows and doors down. Just about any production facility and cut boards accurately so fit is rarely a problem. Exchange the nasty fittings for decent quality ones and the doors will stay level and even etc. I have a lot of experience with plant and machinery and i find German stuff to be mediocre at best and garbage in some cases, but they are dressed up to look good and most people just believe the hype and never look underneath.

No, but I do have a lot of experience of DIY Kitchens and I see that as a barometer. Look at truspilot: DIY Kitchens gets a 4.6 rating based on 4804 reviews, whereas better kitchens only gets a 4.2 based on only 358 reviews. Although this doesn't allow one to compare DIY Kitchens vs Better Kitchens directly, at least not without knowing if they are direct competitors, it does give some guidance as to the number of reviewers who thought each company had the expectations they had formed. So if when you look at DIY Kitchens you like what you see, then there is a 92% chance those expectations will be met when you purchase from them. If you don't like the doors that are available from a company (and you are not going in frame) you could always go bespoke for doors from a joiner or specialist kitchen door manufacturer and then just buy the carcasses from the kitchen company. That's what I'm doing with my kitchen order this time around, simply because I found DIY Kitchen's styling a little bit too limited.

Can you provide a satellite image or even photos showing the position of the house relative to the highway?

@MortarThePoint the clips don't stick for toffee! I did my first floor ufh a couple of weeks ago and used clips, had to screw them down.

The consumer unit sounds fair. I think you would be OK doing the strips yourself if they wire the switch(es) and the drivers. He is probably charging a fair amount because he doesn't want to subsidise the use of a filthy sex pond hot tub.

Is anyone else having flashbacks to the Zoot story?

A bit off topic, but different country yet same situation. I got a quotation for replacing my windows 3 years ago. This year we have incentives for these improvements (up to 1500€ for each home) so I asked for an update of the quotation. Guess what: almost 2000€ more expensive.

Welcome So not finished after 40 years. That should cheer up others.

So waste motor oil and MDF is still OK to burn? ?