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I'm trying to workout how anyones life is meaningful. In the end your born, you live, you die. In the gap between birth and death you do something. What's wrong with toy trains? It's as meaningful as being a barrister, having children, building massive status filled houses or doing nothing.

I don’t think so!,! Rank amateur with tools!. I always use matchsticks or carve my own wood plugs when moving screws a little. Screws at angles is so wrong.

That looks like a really crap job. Moving the stops would have worked better.

As you'll at least be moving water connections, the job will fall under Building Regs anyway. First question form BC you'll get will be about structural engineer's assessment for demolition of the wall. We can give you plenty of ideas, but if the roof collapses (or any other shit happens) it will be all on you: no insurer will pay a penny because 'buildhub folks told me so' Get an SE

Very sensible approach IMO. You have the opportunity to repair the VCL if it gets damaged too.

It must have been the earliest example of priority being given to a disadvantaged minority with a net burden placed on the majority. Consider an inept DIYer wiring a plug in 1970. Hmm the red wire must be the dangerous wire so it should be safer to put that near the fuse. Ok next wire, my dad told me the big long pin is the earth, green leaves grow out of the earth so obviously the green wire grows out of the big earth pin. In 2021 the same inept DIYer will think. The mud colour wire must go into the earth pin because any other colour convention would be absurd, inherently confusing and unsafe. Electricity makes blue sparks which can be painful so best put that blue wire near the fuse and that twirly coloured wire reminds me of an icecream lolly so clearly the old cold used up electricity flows out opposite the fuse but oh, blue is the colour of cold things so maybe I should swap the sun coloured wire into the hot dangerous position near the fuse.

+1 If under 3 sqm you could probably knock the whole porch down and rebuild it without need planning permission. I would just get on and do the clading. Take photos first and ideally annotate one set with dimensions so nobody can argue you've changed it in some other way such as making it a lot bigger. If a someone was to complain to the planners and they felt that planning permission was required they would first send you a letter. The letter will look scary and talk about enforcement action etc but dont panic as its intended to persuade you to engage with the planners. What you do is call up and ask what you need to do. Most likely they will say you need to make a retrospective Planning Application and they will wave it through. Sometimes they have to be seen to follow the due process when someone makes a complaint. Other times they just want the application fee. I recommend making up a test panel with a few slips and mortar and let it dry fully to be sure of a good match to the house. A slight difference in mortar colour can change the way the bricks look quite a bit. Do the neighbours have similar rendered porches or are theirs brick?

If your neighbour isn't disputing the location of the boundary i would get it marked in some way then find someone that can cut it back to the marks and reinstate the drainage. I suspect the neighbour might be guilty of causing a statutory nuisance by causing the damp. Unfortunately nobody will take action against him for you and you don't really want to be paying out for legal costs. I only mention it because it might focus his mind if he gets stroppy. You can tell him if he just let's you get on with it you won't have to take him to court for causing a statutory nuisance with all the legal costs that would cause him.

And what was left on standby? Televisions, computers, broadband router, set top boxes, Fridge / freezer left on? Or was everything unplugged?

So many downsides of recessed lights, best policy is avoid them all together

Many years of practice.

These have only had a couple of coats of paint... These are new frames as part of the refurbishment 10-12 years ago... They just sit very tight. I suspect whoever hung them didn't follow your practice Joe.

Sometimes removing and refitting stops causes more work than is necessary though. Looking at the images above, I'd wager the existing paint will not remain nice and neat on the liner when the stops are removed. Often it's the case they split paintwork when coming off, tearing bits of old paint that then requires shitloads of abrasion to flatten up ready for redecoration. That can even happen when you cut along joint line with a nice new Stanley knife blade, so it can be tricky. Shifting the hinge isn't an entire bodge, but it should be neater than that. The small void left at edge of hinge can be filled with a good filler (hard but with some flexibility) and repainted, so you cant even see it has been done. Screw holes should be totally filled with timber dowel and re-sunk properly so they are perfectly flush to hinge surface.

isotex blocks secure in the back garden

The avatar alone tells me you are a quality individual.

The web has brought some amazing things to our lives and also some utter shitefest tripe. I'd put you in the former category...... naturally.

When I hang new doors I like plant on door stops (not machined into the frame.) hang the door first then add the door stops using a 1mm spacer between door and stop, people forget the thickness of the paint.

You may still have to move the doorstop in the end. My guess is the new doors are thicker than the old ones.

I meet a lot of joiners / carpenters in my travels, but so far I have only met one i regard as good enough to work on my own home, and he did some of my kitchen fitting and jung some of the doors, which he made a very good job of. I define "good enough" to work on my house as capable of doing a better job than I can, and it is saying something when a lot of the joiners I see I don't think can do a better job than me. But just moving a hinge over by a few mm is a difficult job. I would have altered the door stop and taken the hit on re painting after that,

@Onoff getting one on !

Yup.

Any random sentence with the word knob in should do it.

When Hornby/Scalextric moved abroad, when we stopped making tellys here, when sub 6' policemen were allowed into the force...when text speak became acceptable, when the 3 R's lost their importance. The rise of fast food, when kids stopped getting off their ar5es to wash M&D's car for their pocket money...

Presumably their resin driveway is not at least 6" below your walls damp course? Wait until they're out/on holiday, straight edge, petrol disc cutter and cut a foot wide French drain around your porch. Got any pictures?

I would suggest a small initial increase to 40oC max input ( UFH flow temp ) as jumping up to 45--47 could have a rather detrimental effect on certain floor coverings eg warp wooden flooring etc

In Scotland (no experience of England sorry) you can request a copy of building warrant drawings from all of the local authorities if you have an interest in the house - sometimes you have to get confirmation from the copyright holder that it's ok to get a copy - and they charge you for it (have had to do it a couple of times when selling properties with missing paperwork)

if the floor is achieving 24c it sounds like you are loosing heat through building fabric... quite quickly.

So I have a UDM Pro and Unifi PoE switches - cannot recommend the setup strongly enough. I don't need PoE on UDM Pro and it's the NVR for my PoE cams. As an ecosystem, there's nothing else close to it plus with Homebridge, you can bring the cams into Apple HomeKit too If you are running cables between the two switches, you can just go with CAT6 and set up an aggregation group, so you get resiliency on the inter-switch link. Plus, with everything (access points, cameras) all being PoE then all you need to do is put a UPS centrally to keep everything up and running should you lose power.

I try ever so hard to treat planning and BC officers with respect and give them full and accessible information. If that is reciprocated then everything goes smoothly. I have no problem having errors or better ideas pointed out. But I fear it is not the norm and they expect errors, omissions and tricks in the applications and are wary. Some BCOs don't like Engineers as they think we are tricking them with numbers: yes one boy inspector told me that. I once said publicly to a head of planning that we would continue to include access statements as it was an essential part of understanding our design...if we could not explain it then we had not thought about it...He paused his presentation to write that down. Later he told me that he viewed our applications with respect and allowed some freedom of thinking. If only that was the norm. BCOs can be egotistical and vindictive for some reason. Perhaps looking tough is supposed to impress management. The best explanation I can reach is that usually (?) the architect or builder just accepts what they are told by BC....make that joist bigger, dig that hole deeper, so when I ask them to justify it, they resent the challenge. To their defence, one told me that they come across some awful quality control. Example: big new shopping centre...where is the reinforcing mesh?......it is coming. He returned 2 hours later and the concrete was poured with no reinforcement. Little subby but working for major contractor. So perhaps BCOs paint us all as chancers.

Assume it was to building regs for when the house was built. That will impede the power the UFH can deliver. Try taking the rugs away for a day or two, see if it improves.

It won't much. But there's increasing concern amongst regulators about cumulative effect from multiple small developments. It also removes the need to identify a threshold beyond which impact is likely - it's more straightforward to apply it to all development. On a related note we also know that permitted development has, in some circumstances, made a significant change to flood risk.

A valid full planning permission is considered to be the start date for invoices submitted for the reclaim. All ground prep work and if applicable demolition is also eligible for reclaim / zero rating.

£1700 + vat for a 2.5kw in roof 8 all black panels, invertor, meter, all cables and switches.

We went for GSE trays, JA Solar panels and solar edge optimisers and inverter. No complaints (apart from the GSE instructions being terrible).

lol. Hot tip is don't get a hot tub unless you are prepared to look after / maintain it....and NEVER leave your friends alone in it or it'll become 'contaminated' within minutes. Nearly spat my coffee out but pretty much spot on. Didn't someone on here once refer to them as 'sex ponds'? ?? If I were to purchase one of these wonderful gooey devices, I would 100% be heating it with a HP. @Redoctober why not suggest a cheap Chinese HP as that should at least halve the bill, just where to put / hide it and how to integrate to deal with.

Sounds like you have the right builder Make sure there is always air tight tape available on the build, and hammer home the point that it is great for the membrane / airtight layer to not be damaged etc but if it does then PLEASE can the guys just put some tape on afterwards to repair / seal up any such punctures. Explain that the house will be AT tested at the end and that any and all compromises will become apparent, just some will be very hard to rectify at that stage. Best they know it's not the death penalty to damage it, but it will have huge repercussions for you if they don't just quickly fix it in the same moment. Also, +1 to the membrane being the first thing you see, with only the battens atop. Just refreshed the page and saw those comments. Probably worth noting a provisional AT test should be done before any boarding goes on anywhere. You'll be stuffed to fix it retrospectively.

Hot tubs remind me of treatment plants When we installed ours TP I asked if we needed to add bacteria and was told Give it a week and there will be millions of bacteria in there Our neighbors installed one four years ago and have never drained it They also have high electricity bills Definitely not the Ht The Heat pump they had installed has been a complete waste of money ?

I have a lazy spa which is the council version....its horrifically expensive to run especially during the winter. I estimate 60 quid a month in summer up to 120 in winter depending on usage. Proper hot tips are cheaper as they are better insulated. I do like a hot tub though, nice just sitting out looking at the stars

Hot tub every day of the week !! They suck power to keep warm and are a nightmare on electricity bills. If he wants to make it better then get at least another 70mm of PIR on the lid and check how much is round the tub - I’ve seen them with 30-40mm of spray foam on them which is far from adequate

I wonder if your friend has taken his guidance from Happy Hottubs? https://www.happyhottubs.co.uk/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-a-hot-tub I quote: Should I Turn My Hot Tub Off When It Is Not In Use? No. Turning off your spa between uses does not save money. Once the water is heated to your preferred temperature, you’ll save energy—and money—by keeping it there. It costs more to reheat the water from scratch every time you turn it on. Even if you only use your hot tub once a week, you should still leave it constantly running. For vacations of up to two weeks, you may choose to lower your water temperature to as low as 30 degrees celcius, but otherwise leave your spa operating as usual.

You don’t need a step. The AD says you can fall the floor away from the door between the garage and the dwelling. You will however need a self-closing fire door between the two spaces.

Not 100% sure what this is about but.. Conservatories come under different building regs to other rooms. In general they can have more glass and less insulation provided an exterior grade door is retained between the house and conservatory. In addition any heating has to be seperately controlled to the main house. If someone has knocked through or removed the door in the past, or if this is part of your current plans, you may need to demonstrate the resulting new/larger room meets the regs as a whole. Last time I looked there were several calculations you could do to prove this. You start with the easier sums and if they show you dont meet the regs there are more complicated calculations you can do that take into account insulation elsewhere in your house. So the BCO could be saying that no application has been made for this in the past or that he doesn't think you have submitted enough information with the current application or something else along these lines. If you are knocking through into the conservatory as part of the extension and your Architect has been paid to do the Building Control Application drawings then he should do these calculations to insure compliance with Part L.

I absolutely love the place and in all weathers. I'd happily live there.

My Dad also told me to always touch something with your right hand first even if you think it is isolated. Mind you if it's a pylon then it's just a question of which side of you is rare, the middle well done and the rest a dusting of fine ash? Do they teach this still to sparks.. When did the United Kingdom start going wrong? When we started to loose our common sense.

Yup..! my spreads does it by eye - compound curves, the lot. He packed out the bottom edge of a valley as he wasn’t happy where it came into the room and it’s done with bonding and bead and it’s like a knife edge it is that straight. Mates new developer box looks like it’s been plastered with a plastic butter knife …

interesting that the air tight membrane is going behind the 60mm PIR. I was planning on filling the rafters with mineral wool, then putting 80mm PIR and THEN adding the VCL. that way any off-gassing from the PIR is all behind the air tight membrane and not off-gassing in to the house. crazy paranoia or sensible?

Packing out for 3mm....is it really worth the bother running up and down ypur Ceiling packing out such small amounts? I'd hazard a guess that once all skimmed and painted the mk1 eyeball ain't going to notice such small differences when sat on your arse nursing a brew?‍♂️

That's an interesting view, but not one that I share as far as heating and lighting go. I think that being able to control lighting and heating remotely is very useful, whereas being able to control your oven or washing machine remotely sounds silly to me. Heating I know Tado doesn't get a very good rep on this forum, but I have been very happy with my Tado system - let's us control our heating with a lot of accuracy, whether we are at home or away. Also has geofencing so will act intelligently depending on whether we are there or not. All the Tado hardware also has temperature sensors and logs which means you can log the temperature for each zone where you have a Tado thermostat or thermostatic valve. I know a lot of people here like logging temperature, so that gives you some benefits. Lighting You'd be surprised how much of a burglary deterrent having lighting routines come on whilst you are away are. There are lots of ways to do this and you don't need every bulb in your house to be remotely controlled, 5 or 6 bulbs should be enough. This is better than a timer device in my opinion, as you have far more control and can have more varied routines just in case some clever burglar was watching out for the repetitiveness.

A pragmatic view from me..? Having built a few houses out in the sticks and lived in the sticks the last thing you want is for you house to completely burn down due to a lack of water if a fire occurs. Have experienced a neighbours hay lorry going on fire next to their house, used loads of water to stop it setting light to their house. The fire engine ran dry and we drew water from the ponds. If you have the room then ponds can be great fun, not just for kids to learn about nature but for adults too! Once you start to play with them.. it's addictive. If you have a descent roof area you can fill them pretty much with the roof and surface run off water. I can see the logic from my own experience about having a 45m^3 storage as but that is not a big pond. If you live up in say Aberdeenshire it gets pretty cold. If you are doing a pond then you want the aqua culture to thrive and not freeze in the winter. You can find plenty stuff in the SUDS manual about this but in essence you have a shallow sloping bit and a deep bit (1.5 - 2.0m) for winter conditions, lower light levels and so on. A pond of say 6 * 8 *average 1.0m deep will give you your 45m^3. It will vary a bit depending on evapouration so you need to do a few calcs. Yes if you are in sandy ground you'll have much loss so will need a plastic or clay liner. But all this needs to balanced against the fun you'll have playing about..the self build journey.. it's not all about the money you know!

Can be worth a conversation with the planning officer. I'm in the greenbelt, and i've got a nightmare Parish Council, who object to everything. I managed to get from 600sq ft bungalow, to 3200sq ft . I first used PD rights to the max, and drew up a very ulgy building. Then sent him 4 designs for extending the bungalow, with 1 1/2 floors, but slightly smaller footprint, and got that passed. The bungalow is shite, so i went back in to planning for a knock and build at full 2 floors, slightly smaller footprint. Got it passed.