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Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/21/22 in all areas

  1. I think their solicitor might be conflating two completely separate things: (i) a right of way over his property to be able to wheel machinery and building materials to your property; and (ii) nuissance from your building works. Issue (i) comes to establishing that you have a right of way over his land. That will depend partly on deeds/paperwork but also on whether you can evidence that others, particularly you and the previous owners of your property, have exercised a right of way over the land in question for a sufficiently long time such that the right of way arises by prescription. I believe that period of time is 20 years, and owners can change during that period as long as there is more or less continued use of the right of way. Here is an explanation from my favourite law firm name: https://www.wrighthassall.co.uk/knowledge-base/claiming-a-right-of-way-by-prescription#:~:text=What do you need to,in use are relatively short. If the right of way is meant to be enjoyed by the whole street, then other's evidence will be relevant. Obviously if there are access gates between gardens or even just gaps in the fences, that in and of itself is useful evidence. Issue (ii) doesn't currently stand up. Nuissance in the building context can only really mean two things: noise and dust. As for noise, this is policed by the local council. Check what their rules are, usually noise is permitted from around 8am to 530pm Monday to Friday and some councils also allow noise on Saturdays for a limited number of hours. So just set out in writing what the local council's rules are and confirm that you will abide by them and no noisy work will be done outside of those hours. As long as you do that and as long as you stick to those times there is F all he can do about it and no court will grant an injunction on that basis. As for dust, as long as you take reasonable precautions (e.g. wetting very messy stuff before cutting it (like tiles) there isn't much he can do. You are not currently causing a nuissance or threatening to do so, so again no injunction would be granted. Issue (i) is the more difficult one to prove.
    4 points
  2. About 30 or more years ago, I bought a small Honda E300E generator, it was second hand but in good condition and little used. I used it caravaning and camping, mainly to charge a 12V battery. Then we moved to Scotland, it got stored in various places while we built house no 1. I tried to start it 10 years ago and it would not start. Now house No 2 is all but finished I have more time, so time to blow the dust off this and have a go at getting it going. It turned over, plenty of compression, nice spark on it's tiny little plug, and for good measure I fitted the new spare plug. but no sign of life. Plug remaining dry so no fuel. I opened the float chamber drain and nothing came out, so no fuel to carb. Time to start taking it apart to get the fuel tank off. Problem found, no fuel out of the fuel tap. Dismantled the tap and it's filter to find everything completely jammed up with crud. Cleaned it all out and now fuel leaks out of what should be a vent hose. More investigation needed there. So before I spend too much time, time to rig up a temporary fuel supply, a little tiny funnel to feed a small drop of fuel to the carb inlet hose. Second pull off she goes and runs like a dream until the little bit of fuel ran out. At least the carb is not in the same state the fuel tap is. So time to sort the fuel tap. I had thought just buy a new one until I started searching. It turns out this was Honda's first "suitcase" generator launched in 1965, and is somewhat of a collectors item now, but everywhere you look you can find parts lists, and most things, including the fuel tap are not available. Looks like i am going to somehow have to refurbish the one i have, which might be a challenge. I will take pictures later.
    2 points
  3. I am still not clear if you have bought the plot or just thinking about it. I would want to hear what building control say they will accept as a solution? They are the ones that will be signing it off, so you need their accepted solution.
    2 points
  4. He’s in the wrong, you are in the right. But it is important you create a documentary paper trail to demonstrate his ridiculousness. i would write a letter setting out all the trains why you are entitled to access the land, and assure him that your builder will be careful not to damage his property but should aly damage occur you will of course put it right. Then point out that if nonetheless he wrongly believes he needs to get an injunction, ask him whether he will be providing an undertaking for your damages and if so in what amount and how he will fortify this undertaking. Basically, injunctions are extremely hard to get, and if ordered they will usually only be granted on an interim basis and on the condition that the applicant gives an undertaking to pay the respondent’s costs and damages if the injunction turns out to have been wrongly granted. The fortification is effectively some form of security that makes the undertaking worth something more than just a paper promise. That should scare him off.
    2 points
  5. Here's my production profile for today 21 June. 10.02kW array over 3 orientations. God I wish I could get hold of that bloody Solar edge battery and DHW divert. You can see the clipping as my inverter is 6Kw but the benefit of the dc coupled battery is that the excess energy can do direct to the battery uninverted. Interested to see what other have produced today.
    1 point
  6. I had a few spare minutes on this lovely sunny Sunday evening and decided to spend it writing up a blog post for our basement UFH install and screed. We have a 250mm reinforced concrete slab sitting on top of 200mm EPS300 in the basement. The slab wasn’t very flat and so we decided to use a cement based liquid screed to give us a nice level base for our finished flooring. So we put down 25mm of PIR to level things out and also to allow the UFH pipes to be stapled to. I did some quick maths and I figured out that it was cheaper to use the 25mm PIR and UFH pipe staples than to use pipe clips fastened to the slab and a thicker layer of liquid screed and so an order was placed with our BM and it was delivered and fitted by my lovely wife and me. We found this is a pretty easy task to be honest and only found we had to put a small bit of sand blinding to level a couple of dips in one room. In the rest of the basement the PIR just took the bumps of the slab out. We taped the joints and foamed around the edges for a belt and braces approach even though there was a DPM going on top. Next came the DPM layer. We found this a bit of a pain to do! Not hard but trying to smooth it out and keep it square so that a constant amount was taken up the walls was just fiddly. In the end we got the laser level out and set it about 150mm above screed finished level and then used that to ensure we had enough DPM up the walls. Then we had to tape it to the walls but soon found that standard gaffa didn’t stick to the concrete walls nor the dense concrete blocks! We painted the concrete with a PVA mixture and that helped a lot for that but just didn’t work on the concrete blocks at all. Off to Google and this awesome forum and I eventually found Gorilla Tape which sticks well to concrete blocks and we were off and running! Following this we laid the UFH pipes. This was a job we actually really enjoyed. It was very satisfying creating those wonderful spiral shapes. We made some spacers and I was laying the pipe according to the layout designed by Wunda and my wife was walking behind with the stapler ‘kerchunking’ down the staples as we went. At the end it looked so good we were sad to think all our hard work would be covered up and never to be seen again. This was my first time running UFH pipes and also my first manifold fitting and I was very happy with how the manifold turned out. I filled the pipes with water and the pressure gauge showed that there were no leaks. That and the fact there water wasn’t pissing out anywhere! With the liquid screed booked in we needed to get a move on and get everything finished off and ready. The last stretch was to fit the temperature probes, perimeter expansion strip and create the expansion joints for crack mitigation at the doorways. Thanks to advice from this forum’s users I ran the temperature probes in UFH pipe with the end crimped down so as to not allow screed in just in case they need replacing in the future. I got the expansion strip from uHeat on eBay. It came with a plastic skirt and adhesive already attached so it was a real breeze to fit. Not much more to say about that The final thing was crack mitigation strips for between the doorways. After speaking to the screeder I decided to use 5.5mm plywood board. It was an inexpensive and simple solution. I was asked to cut them to size but leave them to the side of the doorways and the screeders would add them as they went around. Obviously I had to put them in place first to ensure I got the sizes right! So here are photos of our basement ready for the liquid screeders. On the day of the screed they turned up early before the screed lorry to setup their pump and check on my prep work. They said it was exemplary and that I wouldn’t believe the state of the prep work of some of the jobs they turned up to! They had absolutely nothing to do to the prep work which made them happy and made me happy that all our hard work was worth it. They put down their little tripod level thingies and waited for the screed to turn up. Once it did it was really quick work and very impressive. If it wasn’t for the fact that they ordered 6.4m3 of screed but the company only sent 6m3 they’d have been done in a few hours but, as it was, they ended up having to wait a good 2 or 3 hours for the last little bit of screed to turn up. They were not happy as, in the end, they had to spend the whole day here when they could’ve been on to the next job. But, at the end of the day we had a wonderfully flat looking basement floor. And 48hrs later we were walking on it. 🙂 All in all very happy with the whole process and I will be getting these guys back in to do our ground floor screed. thanks for reading.
    1 point
  7. That's right but I only currently use about 12kWh in the day and have a overnight usage of about 5kWh. I am exporting circa 40+ kWh with no fit and no SEG as the system has yet to receive MCS sign off as I am awaiting a battery and hot water divert. I got the installers to get it up a running last November as the cost of electricity was rising but the system needs finishing off. I am turning the immersion heater on manually, it's a 4.5kW element so I only turn it on when I am at max generation otherwise I would be paying for the shortfall from the grid. That said though a have a 500l tank full of water at 55C today
    1 point
  8. In answer to your question about specific accreditation, not really. If you purchase a split system you need F Gas certification for the refrigerant gas side of it, not required for a mono block. Ideally a normal qualified electrician and a normal plumper can install the rest. No grants available to you.
    1 point
  9. A monblock ASHP requires some plumbing skills and some electrical skils. Do you have these?
    1 point
  10. I'm no joiner, I just screwed a lot of wood together as a frame, first layer was pallet boards for the floor followed by OSB and then lino. Walls was more OSB, counter battened and then clad with some cheap fencing. Roof was OSB with some plastic corrugated stuff. Got a free window and door - voila! Also got the spark to put a light and some sockets in there. I had the tall fridge/freezer in there as well as the washing machine & tumble dryer. Was a game changer in making van life tolerable.
    1 point
  11. Normally a couple of bends and then copper tails projecting out at 150mm c’s is fine. For a bar mixer you’ll need a fast / easy fit kit to mount the shower with, as with this approach h you’ll be binning the supplied cranked 1/2”x3/4” fittings. LINK
    1 point
  12. As you will be wanting to sell it once you have done with it, anything that makes it look good, and can be packed up inside it i.e. decking, skirt, EWI, cheap A2AHP should add value.
    1 point
  13. Did you get the materials confirmed by the planners? Usually they are reserved matters. I would get the standing seam approved (reserved matter or minor amendment) before changing. The neighbouring properties would not match and that might be an issue I wouldn’t like to test. Standing seam can be quite costly.
    1 point
  14. +1 to what @joe90said. You don't normally need planning permission as long at the windows are of similar appearance but that's a bit open to interpretation. If you are keeping the same basic style as other windows I would just do it and if the planners kick off submit a retrospective application. For Building Control I would find someone to do the brick work and then get a Fensa approved installer to supply and fit as @joe90 said. They should do the paperwork. It's safer to get the window co to measure up after the brickwork is done but if the lead time is long you may not want to do that. In which case keep a close eye on the bricklayers make sure they are aware they need to get close to a specific height. Design it to ensure it's a whole number of bricks/blocks courses. Mark the wall with a line etc. Usually windows are made a few mm smaller than the opening. When you order make sure you check if they want the dimensions of the opening or the actual window. Sorry if you know all this.
    1 point
  15. Joe, do you mind advising me what Ecology would loan you? As it 3.5 or 4 x your salary? The reason I ask is because another provider who is quite experienced with self builds up in Scotland has told us the figure we want isn't possible. But I put it in to the 'how much can I borrow' part of the Ecology site and it says much more? The ecology site does have a few flaws though and I was guessing somewhat as the 'information' symbol next to the question such as 'money each month after outgoings' didn't work so I was unable to know exactly what figures they are after. Thanks
    1 point
  16. Thanks for this, an obvious (now that you have told me) way to avoid a crappy hockey stick and meter box in the cavity. After speaking with NIE, they said no to an external meter box which I was surprised about. And of course they don't allow kiosks. So the plan is (and NIE's standard advice it seems!) to build an extra leaf of block on the side of the house and outside the insulated foundation at about 1500 wide by 1500 high and about 400 deep. The permali box will be recessed into this.
    1 point
  17. Yeah we laid a MOT "road". In our case the site was on a slight slope and clay soil. I would actually dig it out as you would for a driveway base or perhaps a bit deeper to allow another layer of MOT to be added before the final surface at the end. That's because we had quite a bit of soil migrate onto the MOT during construction. Beware MOT type 1 is not guaranteed to be water permeable. Ours was crushed limestone and the dust on it set up like concrete. I think you need MOT type 3 (?) If you want/need it to be permeable to meet a planning condition.
    1 point
  18. Update on this - I managed to get through to someone via Virgin Media text help service, and they booked in an engineer within days, at a cost of £25. He dug up the cable and extended it so there is plenty of slack to move it out of the way of excavations.
    1 point
  19. Injected Closed cell foam like Walltite would give you the best insulation for the cavity width but it's not cheap. https://youtu.be/z7c_vMCzZ-g EPS beads are much cheaper buy may not flow well in such a small cavity. Avoid injected mineral wool or open cell foam.
    1 point
  20. I haven't re-read the regulations. However it is important to note that the great big document is of guidelines and suggested solutions. Only the little green section is 'the regulations'. Your challenge then is to propose a solution that deals with the supposed issue. As all sites are different the risks and solutions are also different. The reason for the distance is to allow the water to disappear and not to upset the foundations. The facts that the soakaway was a surprise, and that yours is far away will help the discussion too. Therefore a barrier between the two might work, or the foundations just a little deeper. If it has building regs approval, I assume this was before discovery of the existing soakaway. There is no guarantee of this being approved, and we would need to know much more before giving you more certainty.
    1 point
  21. Welcome @Adsibob is the expert at London renovations, he has just about had everything go wrong. Make sure you get on with neighbours, and builders stay solvent. Not to mention getting wine fridges.
    1 point
  22. It's not clear to me that he is legally wrong, mortally yes. You would have to prove that you have a right of access over the land and unless it says in the deeds what you can do then it might be more restrictive than you think.
    1 point
  23. This almost sounds like he feels very sore about his initial offer of help being rejected and is acting out of spite. That would be odd but It may stem from a lack of communication over the moves you took to bring in other designers. Sometimes people build an inaccurate model of what they think another person is thinking and act entirely on that misconception. ...Ah, I see Jilly just got in ahead of me but yes we're thinking along the same lines.
    1 point
  24. Sounds like your neighbour is set on being a pain in the butt. How was the letter delivered? If not recorded delivery, I'd be tempted to bin it and carry on as planned. However... wiser words are as above. If you can still manage to be civil with the guy, try and come to some sort of understanding and agreement, but you really need to understand what your legal rights of access are first.
    1 point
  25. In case this helps in any way: I have what is called 'country drainage'. Just a single brick chamber but with in and out pipes turned to mid depth to avoid floaters escaping. It takes rainwater too, which is a bad thing, but mostly doesn't matter. This goes 20m to soakaway in a nearby field which isn't ours. It had been used by the previous owner for at least 30 years and for all we know was never cleaned. For many years we left it untouched with a 6" crust on top and 6" sludge on the bottom. It shouldn't have worked, then one rainy day it didn't, and mucky water came out of the outlet manhole. My rods and a karcher drain clearer didn't help, as the outlet pipe was solid. I had it pumped out and also got the pump about 5m along the outlet when the driver wasn't paying attention (not meant to do that). Since then (5 years?) all is good. Therefore I think the remaining gunk in the pipe, and also the soakaway, must have continued to digest their contents once the overloading was prevented, clearing the way for the drain to run. Moral: I don't think an annual pump-out is necessary, and have no plans to do it for a while. BTW when the chamber was empty I got in and shovelled out what was left.. No comment about most of what shouldn't have been in there. But there was also a great lump of hip tiling, all cemented together, and some wood attached. Some cowboy in the past had decided not to trouble himself with disposal, and had chucked it in the chamber.
    1 point
  26. A fair call. I find I only have two tools to compensate for my inexperience, asking and researching/analysing. Asking is much preferred but I feel a bit guilty asking so many questions sometimes.
    1 point
  27. Calm down. They are normally really slow. As you wrote to them last week, leave it until Friday to speak to them. The appeal route is a non-starter. They can string you along for months if they want to. Rear extension is normally PD. Are you doing anything lairy? If not, just be polite and bide your time.
    1 point
  28. The other benefit of a battery ( be it EV or home ) is you can fill yer boots at off peak rate . This is the best option during winter months when PV is negligible. A battery isn’t just for summer - it’s for winter also 😁
    1 point
  29. Power. I planned ours well but it was a year to get sorted, albeit I had three fields to cross and my own transformer. It didn't affect schedule just took a while. On the day they ran the lines it was mega quick. I'm currently 15 months in and outside nearly complete. It's slow now plodding along at weekends alone, but I enjoy it. Windows will hold you up, and contractors. The other thing that held it up is me, wanting to control all aspects of the build and be there and oversee people.
    1 point
  30. Roof tiles , in particular clay roof tiles , ordered ours June 21 for October 21 delivery last 4 packs didn't arrive until February 22 , 3 month delay on the build .
    1 point
  31. Squirt with penetrating oil and put back in the shed till 2030.
    0 points
  32. Nah... I think that when he submitted the objections his battle-lines were already drawn, and he'd resolved to live with whatever fall-out followed...
    0 points
  33. Thank you, that is what I thought What is concerning is that his legal letter was vague. It doesn't say what he considered to be "heavy machinery" for example. It does say that he thinks that the passage is "normally" used "four times per day" which may be right on a quiet day but we've used it dozens of times per day for days on end when people have been having work done. That's why I am sad that he has gone straight to his solicitor. As per other replies here he was a GOOD friend. That makes sense Thank you for that, I may have to talk to a solicitor after all From great friend to this in less then 4 weeks.
    0 points
  34. Park a (expletive deleted) off big crane outside the front of his house. See how he feels about things then.
    0 points
  35. If and when you email the Planning Officer, you should also copy in their line/area/team manager along with the admin department. That would usually prompt a response.
    0 points
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