Roger440

I would urge some caution with retrospective application. Starting to see some nonsense creeping in. There are acouple of people in some groups im in that are being told by BCO to fit insulation to an existing house during roofing to current standards. Whilst we all know that the regs allow for common sense to be applied where current regs cannot be achieved, such as insifficent actual space, thats not stopping some BCO's from insisting on it. One was told to change the roof to comply, as in complete new roof structure! Whilst clearly wrong, you cannot appeal a BCO decision. They are also under pressure to take enforcement action now on stuff they know doesnt comply. Once you engage them, they know about it. Is the above likely, probably not, can it happen, yes.

I wouldnt worry. None of thats ever going to happen. Well not without charging the customer eleventy billion pounds for it. Its just PR.

Thanks for the explanation. If im honest, its probably beyond my comprehension from a maths perspective. The wind table is that where the wind is coming from or going to? The house is in a sizeable "hole" with big hills all around. Prevailing wind is, as normal (im in mid wales) from the south west, shielded by a massive bank of conifers, my barn, and behind that a 400ft high hill. Still 900ft up though. But, im not really able to interprete your excellent information to any useful extent.

So buy fuel? Petrol can degrade over time, so use diesel. Will pretty much last forever.

Im not sure it unfairly subsidised. Railways, which are infrastructure heavy, so have huge cost overheads. Aviation simply doesnt have that, by the nature of what it is. Railways are already massively subsidised. Multiple times what it was under BR. All acedemic, because our railway is mostly full. There is no realistic prospect of a big increase in capacity, because it is the size it is. Making it bigger, or more accurately, adding substantial capacity isnt realistic, see HS2 for details. There isnt going to be a big transfer of passengers from air to rail because rail couldnt cope. Air to bus or car, maybe.

Except for freight, we dont have a privatised railway. Network rail is owned by the state. The train operators that are left only do EXACTLY what the Dft tells them to do. In return they get a % margin. Until the franchise runs out, then it return to DfT. Its not privatised anymore at all.

If you need the extra power, rather vheaper to buy a generator than bump up battery size. Plus can be used indefinetely in the event of an extended power cut.

As Badger says, the work you had done was notifiable under building regs. Im guessing from your concern about the addtions, you didnt involve building control? I cant say id be worried about it though. If you are, you can probably get it done retrospectively.

Good info as always. The thing that has changed is the introduction of ventilation into the roof space. It didnt have any before, and was pretty much sealed up all round. And the extension is, all in all, very lightweight for a roof. 75mm rafters with composite tiles. So wind uplift would, by all accounts be greater than before. With a storm incoming, i decided to put some straps up the bedroom wall onto the rafters, in addtion to my other efforts. Every third rafter. Which is closer than required by BC as i understand it, but im onto the rafters at 45 degrees rather than a wall plate at 90. So obviously not as effective. Looks horrendous, but as i will be doing further work to that room, including insulating, it will, in time, get covered up. Storm came and went and i still have a oof, so thats a positive! But it was, in the end, only 55mph, so not much of a storm really.

I may not have explained myself well. The house is already built, this bit 40 years ago. I cant access the wall plate, at least not without removing some roof, and even then, it would have to be on the outside of the wall. Yes, its true i could see the top of the wall plate whilst doing the work, but that didnt really help as id still have the issue of the vertical part of the strap being visible.

No, its not. Thats my issue.

Im doing some work on the roof of my house. However, its come to light that there appears to be nothing holding the roof down on the extension. There were a couple of straps nailed to a rafter and down into the wall plate. Which clearly isnt much use when the nails are in the vertical plane! They just pulled off by hand. The work has introduced ventilation via the eaves that was previously blocked off. Which was causing some condensation isues unsurprisingly. The house is reasonably exposed, ive introduced ventilation, therefore wind into the roof, and theres little holding it down. Which is sub optimal. The front half of the house has 2 massive purlins that are embeded into 2 ft thick stone gables. So theres no realistic risk of the roof being pulled upwards. The extension roof is at 90 degrees to the original part and all tied in and nailed together. Ive been up into the gable end of the extension, put a strap on off the ridge beam onto the gable wall, and, addtionally, the end rafter has diaganols down to the ceiling joist. Ive bolted these to the gable wall too. So, im happy the gable end is pretty secure, the other end is well tied into the existing roof. Its the bit in the middle thats troubling me. The wall plate is on the outer leaf with birdsmouth to clear the inner leaf. No straps to be seen. My current thougts for retrospective installation is on the inside wall and screw to rafter . The ceiling has the 45 degree slopy bit on the inside so can do all of it from inside. However, as one might imagine, this involves making a mess of the bedroom, and so there is pressure to not do so. Am i over worrying? The roof is quite lightweight, 75mm rafter and composite roof tiles. Thoughts please?

Once again, you are making asumptions about what im saying. Ie, appear to be suggesting im denying that the climate is changing. Ive never said that. My view is about how we deal with that. There are lots of options for that. Ive expressed them before, and therefore will not do so again as theres only one way of tackling it permitted here. All others are shouted down. Ive failed to follow my own post. But will do from here on.

Agreed. Your suggested sceanario is almost certainly what will happen. For the reasons you state. And its no different on here. Only one viewpoint allowed.

Not sure i see the relevance. Or maybe you are just re-inforcing my point............................

Im sitting this one out. Theres only one allowable viewpoint on here........................

I maybe should have clarified, theres no real person you can contact in the event of an issue. If support is via an app, im not interested. That not support. Given me and technology, having support is important for when the inevitable problems happen. Other peoples idea of straight forward and easy to use often isnt mine. Interestingly, OR have just been installing fibre here after saying they wouldnt!. However, id rather poke a sharp stick in my eyes that have to deal with them. Unless my 4G falls over permanently for some reason, ill stick with that. Its significantly cheaper too.

This seems to be quite a popular solution in Ireland on old houses. Ive no idea why as its likely to create damp problems. And increases the risks during rexcavation, depending on the depth of the foundations.

Glad to have helped!

Ive been talking directy to the engineers. That a good thing about National Grid. You get to talk to sensible people, not admin people. In summary. 2 properties connected to a single phase transformer on a pole in my field, connected to the 11kv. Only circa 6 properties on the leg. As far as i know it terminates a couple of miles away.

Thanks Gus. I understand diversity. At the 60 amps i have its not going to fly. At 80 amp, is marginal at best. You may not have seen, but the big loads are cooker, 30amp, electric shower, 30 amp, compressor circa 40amp. Plus everything else that one normally has. Add a HP, and possible EV charger (though i dont need one now) and you can see i might have an issue. Yes, apply diversity, but theres a limit to that. I think the debate has run its course to be honest. My choices are, stump up the big numbers, or take the low cost upgrade to 80 amp, and figure out a means of generating power on demand if / when i run out of capacity. You suggestion of an 80 amp breaker my side is a good idea as it will let me know when im at the limit before it causes any real issues. Ive got to move the consumer unit, so ideal time to do that.

Im not really sure how many times i can say the same thing. They confirmed, had there been 3 properties not 2, they would have given me a 3 phase supply for a nominal cost. So, again, the reason i cannot have a supply at a nominal, lets call it a sensible cost, is because of the number of properties. With 3 properties they were prepared to install 3 phase at their cost. You argument that its abnormal isnt relevant. My requirement would be the same if there were 3 houses. Then i wouldnt have to pay. Not sure i see much point in further debate as you seem to have latched on to this abnormal load thing, when thats actually got nothing to do with the reasons i find myself where i am.

Did you read what i said? Load balancing is so important, but isnt if i pay some money. The decision about what i can have is actually based around the number of houses on the transformer. As ive explained. Again. If there were three houses i could have my supply, irrespective of my "unusual load". Because they dont care about the unusual load. Thats not the reason for rejection. For some reason, you are not getting it?

Ill say again, the refusal was because of there only being 2 houses. Had there been 3, they have confirmed that much of the cost would be taken by them. They would have installed a three phase transformer, which would enable load balancing. Even if i had a requirement for 23kva, its still a no. Only 2 houses = no. Unless i want to pay, and then the load balancing issue magically disappears. Amazing what cash can do...... All other arguments are secondary. No point making an application. Its still no. It will always be a no while there are only 2 houses. Theres zero chance of there being 3.

They are lead acid, so ricks comments apply.