Dreadnaught

Advice please. Should I claim back my planning application fee, or not so as to be kind to my planning officer (who I rather like)? I spoke to my planning officer today and said that I was thinking of asking for my fee back. He said it was my right to do so but he would prefer if I didn't. Background My planning application was made in January this year. Because of over work and short staff my application has taken an age. And at no stage was I asked to extend the planning deadline. Under the regulations* my planning application fee must be refunded if it all takes more than 26 weeks, which it has. My application is at long last going to committee shortly and the planning department have said they are recommending its approval. So what to do? Claim the fee back, or don't so as to be kind and maybe generate some goodwill? * regulation 9A of the 2012 Fees Regulations of the The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2013.

@ryder72, out of interest how would you choose to rank worktop materials? The ones that come to mind are Dekton, quartz, marble, wood, and no doubt you know of many others that I don't. I ask because I will be specifying a kitchen for my new build in the coming months and I know very very little about kitchens. In fact, all I know is that kitchens sell houses, so I want one that will look highly desirable to a potential buyer.

Compriband or similar?

My planning decision is dragging on too. Sorely tempted to follow in your footsteps.

And you also had your local micro-climate issue, with a particularly sheltered plot location. As standard, PHPP uses local climate data for a broad area. I can't remember whether that is county-by-county or something more granular based on postcode. Either way it can lead to discrepancies from reality.

To quote something I read this morning by Jae Cotterell (co-author of the Passive House Handbook, and the architect of at least one of the houses featured in Ben Adam Smith's House Planning Help Podcast) (my emphasis): Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/timber-passivhaus-unforeseen-consequences-jae-cotterell/.

As the dust settles, and for other the benefit of future readers, here are two articles that I found to be a good summary of the matters being discussed here … http://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/decrement-delay/ http://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/thermal-mass/ (Source: here).

Welcome to the forum! That sounds like a lovely area for a self-build.

@vivienz , if you're in the Apple ecosystem (Music, etc.) then an AirPlay-2 compatible multi-zone amplifier could be a good solution for your needs. Let me know if that's of interest and I can advise more. https://www.apple.com/uk/airplay/

That's the model I'm thinking of using. Following with interest! Condensate-drain arrangement ready?

@CC45, thanks. Did you grab someone to show you around or were you self-guided?

I will visit the DIY Kitchens showroom up in Pontefract next Friday. I will be stopping off on my way from my current home (Hampshire) on my way to my holiday in Scotland. It will be first visit to their showroom and the first time seeing their full range of kitchens. Given it may be only visit before I specify my kitchen for my forthcoming build, and, given how far away the showroom is from where I live down South, it may possibly be my only visit to the showroom, does anyone have any advice on how best to use the visit to best effect?

@Adrian Walker recently pointed me towards these… Probably not suitable for your case @ProDave but ingenious I thought none-the-less.

I am very interested in circadian lighting. I haven't yet seen an easy solution to achieve it. With lamps that can change colour temperature I thought it would be easy. And I would have thought Philips Hue would do it but, as far as I have seen, their solutions are limited. I have a few of the Philips Hue bulbs.

Out of interest, why not one of these, and then straight in? (I will have the same problem with trees.) https://guttercentre.co.uk/Lindab-Self-Cleaning-Leaf-Trap-For-Downpipes-SLS

Welcome! I wonder, are you in a Cotswold conservation area? Will it be a traditional design or modern?

@AliG, in addition to what you are considering, I wonder if you have a loop of UFH in that room that you can somehow run independently. Could you use it (unheated) to redistribute heat from that room to other parts of the house? Just an idea.

I am having a green roof on my forthcoming build. Mine was effectively mandated by the planners to satisfy SUDS. But building on what others here have said, my green roof will be a sedum roof, wholly inadequate for growing anything other than plants that tolerate sparse nutrition and occasional desiccation. And my roof will weigh (at most and when fully laden with both water and a layer of snow) 120 kg per square meter. Such a minimalistic sedum roof is called an "intensive" green roof. What you propose is an "extensive" green roof, where the roof is suitable for growing much more. An extensive green roof is an undertaking that is an order of magnitude greater, requiring the structure of the dwelling to be much enhanced to support the considerable extra weight. And it would not surprise me if the cost of such a roof was 10x greater by comparison. Be cautious!

Welcome! Sounds like a lovely area. Doing much of the work yourself?

That video was memorising! It is fascinating to see the intricacy and precision of the mechanical design of such a seemingly mundane object, and the skill and knowledge of the fellow in the video. Impressive.

Run the cable down to the ground and then through a conduit buried in the ground? I assume you're thinking of PoE cameras so only a single cable involved for both data and power.

Oh, sorry Russell, I know nothing about the such legal matters. Perhaps there are others here who might. Notwithstanding, I would certainly contact them and see if you could be connected with FTTP to your new lake house. The price will probably be prohibative but you never know.

Oh wow, that is interesting. How has that worked out for them?

Personally I am intending to install a fibre-optic cable connection all the way to my new house (FTTP) and not just to the local cabinet (which then have copper wire (or worse aluminium wire) to connect from the cabinet to the house). I have the advantage of being in a central town location and in a town that has lots of FTTP already. Russell, in your splendid bucolic rural idle it is highly unlikely that any local company can provide FTTP to your location but worth the briefest of checks just in case. If you did have it you would be well future-proofed.

Brilliant! Good scientist that you are, I assume you worked methodically through your pantry cupboard until you hit upon peppermint. I can imagine the process… coffee powder, lemon, chilli powder, marmite… before the Eureka moment!