Roger440

Hmmm, back in bucks having a conversation wast a thing. Make an application was the only answer available, regardless of the question. Maybe where I am now is better? But again, don't want to alert them to activity. Private BCO might work, though it seems lots have ceased trading. As I continue to ponder, I'm wondering if I should just claim I did everything that's not visible from a satellite or the road before October 23? Ref the windows, I've used the Jeremy spreadsheet. I struggle with it as I'm not good with maths, but essentially, there's a limit to what we can achieve with the walls before we start to create new issues with dew points in the wall and the like. There's quite a lot of windows, so going triple glazed did, usefully improve things. At a price. But given the existing windows are early 80's uPVC with lots of blown units and something like 12mm between the panes, replacement was always necessary.

Therin lies the issue though. You are entirely at the mercy of the BCO. They have no concern if you can afford what they say. That is not there concern. So one runs the significant risk of having to do something different. The traditional building groups have plenty of examples of the BCO forcing people to do things that are to the detriment of the building fabric. Of course, under the new regulations, they are not allowed to advise. In a situation where there is a lot of grey, as there will be deviation, that's really quite difficult. The real issue is, having invited them in, as it were, they now know you intend to do work. If you disagree with the requirements, they know you are doing it, so enforcement action would be very easy for them .

Yes, the work won't comply. I can't achieve many of the requirements. The insulation I will apply to the roof for example simply won't be and cannot be deep enough to meet the regs. Therefore my options, in theory, is to leave as is, ie, uninsulated, or to do it without approval. I can't meet the regs. Well I could buy re roofing for example, but that's just plain daft.

I agree. But those responsibilities and liabilities is exposure to enforcement action for up to 10 years, with unlimited fines and jail time. So I can fit the windows, and always could, but the risk and repercussions were low. And rather more proportionate. I'm now sitting here pondering what to do as I can't comply practically, nor can afford to if I need to pay BC every time I do something. Even the windows, the supplier has no installers that will come here and sign off themselves. Which wasn't a concern because I'm perfectly capable of doing so myself. Also experience suggests many holders of a fensa certificate either don't want to or incapable of a decent quality installation.

Ive an old cottage with a 70's extension on it. Its in resonable condition and we live in it. It is, however, a thermal disaster. We are munching circa 1700 litres of oil on heating a year. Anyway, in my mind ive formed a plan of what i can do to improve, bearing in mind stone walls with no DPC. Nothing silly, just the usual stuff, probably lime and wood fibre to the walls, triple glazing to achive as much as possible, and some works to the slopy part of the celings with PIR. And a small extension to the existing single story extension. Normally, id just crack on. Ive little time for building regs having, at the previous house a whole suite of certificates, mostly not worth the paper they were written on, as lots of stuff didnt comply, including some pretty serious stuff id never consider doing! One of which cost £17k to rectify. However, the change of enforcement period from 12 months to 10 years plus unlimited fines and prision have caused me to ponder for a moment. Clearly, the works i wish to do dont have a hope of compliance, and even if i wanted to comply, aside from being in many cases impossible, in order to demonstrae compliance with involve paying lots of somcalled professionals to assesments etc. These two factors combined would render the works both unachievable practically and unaffordable. I couldnt even fit some windows myself if we follow this to its logical conclusion. So, i was wondering what others in a similar postion did? Obviously with a new build or major extension etc, its clearly unavoidable, after all, you need that final certificate. Especially as i will be doing it in stages, i can see compliance costing me many thousands extra in "fees".

Jotun do an epoxy which i think is suffixed AL. It has aluminium flakes in ut, is super drable and greyish silver in colour. Check which version though, you need the one that is a topcoat is is UV stable. I get mine from here: https://www.smlmarinepaints.co.uk/ Very helpful as are promain. You actually get to speak to a real person who has knowledge. Crazy, it will never catch on!

Seems like a bargin to me. I got a quote for £17.5K + vat for an electrical connection thats 50 feet away on my own land with me doing all the work. But as Conor suggested, they just look up a table. Theres no common sense or reasoning applied. Just before i moved a new build in the next village needed a water connection. Much like this one. Mains in the verge. Almost identical in fact. Traffic boys turned up, set up their traffic lights for one way working and retired to their van for the rest of the day.. Except it was a single track road. So the passing traffic was three feet from the guy doing the work, just as it would have been without the traffic lights. Except it was now chaos because, having seen a green light you entered the section only to be greeted by another car waiting at the red light with nowhere to go. Its not a busy road, but still chaos nonetheless. A classic example of the utter stupidity of the people in these organisations. This excercise gave the chaps doing the work no additional protection at all, cost the homeowner an extra bunch of cash, inconvinienced everone using the road, and lined the pockets of the traffic management firm.

As Tom suggest, services can be expensive. They wanted £17k plus VAt, with me doing the trenching, to get a supply from a pole that was 50 feet away, in my oen field! Yes, it needed a new transformer, but if the supply is a hundred meters awaym across other people land, it can get expensive really quick Im not sure Tom is correct re the 3 years. My understanding was on class Q its three years to complete. Unlike any other planning. As well as a decent structural survey, you need to establish 100% you can have a sewage treatment system. If you cant, the plot is, frankly, useless. Again, that will need a survey to confirm it can be done in compliance with all the requirements.

Dead easy to avoid thermal bridging at foundation level if using an insulated raft too.

Not really, not on a decent thickness composite panel. We are not talking about single skin steel roofs.

Good info. Thanks for updating the thred.

Im good with the installation side. Used it before, so im not concerned about that aspect. Pretty much got everything i need both tools and consumables etc, just not the actual panels. Yes, checked the Kingspan load tables, and, handily, 3.6m was the max span for the sheets i considered using, though i will confess the load data im less clear on. Not my strong point. I appreciate its not a common solution for a house, but it works ok on commercial buildings and my own garage i built way back.

Why not for a small area? Its only 3.6m deep, so can span that without any supporting structure at all, other than the wall it attached to (existing) and the outer wall of the extension. 150mm panel would meet the regs i believe from an insulation perspective. Your latter suggestion is fine, except that it wont meet regs with the depth i have. Currently its not even insulated but has no ventilation as it has existing walls in 2 sides, so no easy route to do so. Ive yet to look in there and see how much mould there is.

All very interesting stuff. Especially as i have a small flat roofed extension which i want to enlarge. However, i only have circa 175mm to play with otherwise it will foul the door on the flat roof. It strikes me there is no "compliant" roof build up that i can use. So currently looking at composite steel cladding!!! Which makes all the problems of having timber in the build up go away. It does however creaye some other issues....................

This is disaster looking for somwhere to happen. Probably in your living room. Cob walls really, really dont like being wet. Plenty in devon and cornwall that have collapsed for this reason. If you do any of the things you have suggested, where do you think the moisture will go? Or put another way, if you washed your clothes, took them out of the washing machine, put them in a plastic back and hung it on the washing line, what do you think will happen? Ill give you the answer. They will stay wet. This is exactly what you are proposing to do, with the inevitable outcome. I gave you your only viable solution. It remains the only sensible one, especially with a cob wall.

Rather depends on how "bad" the damp is. Id be tempted to remove plaster and allow to dry out. If it does, ie, its dispering happily into the room, then simply replaster with lime plaster. (and lime paint) Sometimes the simple solutions are best. Worked for me.

No. Too much to do, so have moved this job to next year!

This ^^^^^ The important part of your build up, assuming its a a suitably old house is the geocell layer.

As has been pointed out, covering the wall in tanking, cement, gypsum plaster etc will stop it breathing/drying out. The net result will be the wall is wet. From your description of some of the mortar being like clay, id suggest its very wet already. Without a DPC in the walls, trying to stop moisture getting into the wall is pointless. Never going to work. Those rods? Forget about them, never going to work. If you want a dry wall its needs to dry out. Yes, some of that moisture will be inside the house. With good ventilation and or dehumidifiers it can be. But both sides of the wall need to be able to dry out or "breathe" as the traditionalists would say. Do this and it will likely dry out. I say likely, as this is reliant on the walls being able to disperse the moisture faster than the bottom of the wall is absorbing it. You cant know the answer to that until afterwards. Having done all this, i was astounded at the speed it all dried out. The DPC under your concrete is likely making the walls wetter than they might otherwise be, but short of digging up the floor (i did) theres not much you can do about that.

Does a cold damp outer wall matter if it is, to all intents a rainscreen? Granted, not many can sacrifice that much interior space, (ie, the air gap plus internal wall bild up) but its viable on bigger building like barn conversions.

I looked (briefly) at storage. Using old milk tankers. Buried. Rough calcs suggested id need 2 to keep house warm through winter. They are £5k a pop. Plus need burying. Additional complication was very high water table, so heat would be constantly sucked away unless significant work was done on drainage etc. Simply makes no sense in the real world.

Much as i dont like more laws, in this case, good.

Your existing planning is not "at risk" if you make another planning application. You can make as many as you want. That you have planning already in perpetuity means applying for more is a no risk option. Anything new will incur all current regs.

I made it out of bits of XPS insulation board, glued and screwed together so it was a snug fit over the entry point and the 2 return pipes. What i never did do was sort out the open pipe from on the settled sludge return. I was going to put a pipe on this so instead of it just splashing about, it would run downhill into the water and hence be quiet.. The downside of that, is that you then cant really see if you have that set at the right rate, so it would need to be easily removable. Like Joe90, i fitted some foam to the inside too. Addtionally i had decking over the top. Still wasnt happy with it. Ive moved since, but there is no way id locate a plant anywhere near the house again. Fortunately im on a septic tank now. The vortex might be good in some respects, but it has some obvious flaws, one of which is noise, the other is the tendancy for the settled sludge return to get blocked. The noise issue would be easy for them to solve. I wouldnt buy another.

Dont remember the pic. But it was much the same back at my old place in Bucks. We were the only house without one, but i got all the "benefits" apart from heat from everyone else. Absolutely no need for it. No one was doing it to save money or as primary heating. No such problems where we are now, though we do have one local who burns everything and anything. Fortunately for me, we are upwind of them and 1/4 mile away. If i lived next door to them id be rather unhappy.