Dreadnaught

I think that these are the links: http://www.rtpi.org.uk/planning-aid/about-us/what-we-offer/ http://planninglawblog.blogspot.co.uk

As its a potential contractual dispute, any family high-street solicitor would do in the first instance.

Its certainly ambiguously worded. I would speak to a solicitor, at least for an initial free consultation and go from there. The interpretation of these things can depend on precedent. And besides even just a solicitors letter can be an effective means of raising the profile of your concerns with the counterpart.

PHPP model of your house before you start and blower-door test at the end (ideally one before then too), and lot more about Passive House besides. A fabric-first approach!

Good point; both (personal and public) liability and (professional) indemnity insurances. I come from my business context but do not know how insurance works in either the agricultural or building sectors.

I do not have direct experience of this but I do have experience running a VAT-registered business. I agree with @vivienz, whether he is a builder or not is irrelevant in my opinion. What matters is whether the party you are contracting with for the work (in this case your agricultural worker I assume) is VAT registered and how the work itself is rated (in this case zero rated).

@craig I wonder, have you ever designed for motorised blinds?

If you're a fan of avoiding the performance gap (between and building's re-design and its actual performance), have you heard of the EnerPhit standard? It is Passive House but for retrofit. More info here: http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/page.jsp?id=20 if you're interested.

Thought provoking comment ? If your diurnal rhythm requires it, just open a window. Voila! Even in a Passive House. Joking apart, I did think about this in relation to living in a Passive House. I wonder if anyone currently sleeping soundly or otherwise in a Passive House can comment? By the way, there is indeed some evidence I have seen that temperature does play a role in the diurnal rhythm. For example a dose of cold before sleeping is soporific. However I suspect it’s effect is dwarfed by the effect of light.

This is very interesting for me. My target plot has a similar flooding risk. I am wondering if I can use an insulated floating raft and wondering if the height can be raised just with more EPS. Haven't asked someone like IsoQuick yet but tempted to do so. The point here is the temperature gradient. The ground maintains a more consistent temperature across the year than does air. In the winter it is comparatively warmer than air and in the summer the reverse. There is a second concern over wind cooling. This is distinct from just cold stationary air. Wind penetration of insulation materials can impair their insulative functioning, possibly dramatically. Best to shield insulation from the wind wherever possible. UFH is more relevant for a Passive House where the internal temperature variation over 24h is relatively small. Then it does not matter very much when you impart energy into the slab (or the house) in the 24h cycle. The occupants wont notice anything other than a constant temperature being maintained. ADDED: in a Passive House, UFH has three useful roles: (1) use of the slab as a heat store (as @TerryE described); (2) UFH can redistribute heat around the house (like @JSHarris's example), and (3) UFH loops, if linked to a heat pump, can be used to cool the house (again like @JSHarris) but it should be noted the this delivers cooling in a less-than-ideal location (i.e. the floor, not ideal for convection) and can cause a condensation if taken too far. Thus for a Passive House, UFH is your flexible friend and pretty cheap if installed when pouring the slab.

Very interesting. A € invoice as you mentioned before, so you carried FX risk for about 3-months on £13,000. Not to be sniffed at in these volatile times I suppose. You could have fixed it if you had wanted. Did it cross your mind?

This seems to be relevant for this discussion: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/individuals/buying-goods-services-online-personal-use/buying-goods/buying-goods-online-coming-from-within-eu-union_en Summary: if the seller is above a certain low threshold for cross-border sales the seller can choose to apply the VAT rate of the destination country. Interestingly the note adds: "There will be many cases when the seller will not inform you of the applicable VAT rate." And "If the seller is required by the national regulation to issue an invoice, you will have the information about the VAT rate that has been applied." Overall it sounds to me like we self-builders should be checking VAT arrangements with an EU seller before ordering. As for after Brexit, I imagine its anyone's guess.

Thank you. Very interesting. So the seller used the MOSS-style approach for VAT, which I had thought only applied to digital service, and applied UK VAT. Intriguing! I wonder if all foreign sellers do that or some try to apply their local VAT rate. Instead I wonder if you could have just enclosed a copy of your bank/credit card statement for the purchase showing the GBP equivalent you actually paid. That's what we tend to do in another context. Just a thought.

That's interesting. So the UK authorities refunded Austrian VAT? Out of interest, did you highlight the foreign VAT especially in your VAT claim to HMRC? (I checked online and Austrian VAT happens to be 20% too but if the purchase had been from Germany, for example, the rate and presumably the reclaim would have been 19%.)

@epsilonGreedy Is it a new build or retrofit? EnerPhit instead perhaps?

Out of interest @epsilonGreedy, are you aiming for Passive House standard?

Off topic. I wonder if SPONS goes out-of-date fast? A 2016 copy is available for £3.50 on eBay. I appreciate the some prices may have spiked after the Brexit referendum but would a 2016 copy of SPONS be better than nothing?

Saturated brine would act as a good sterilant I would have thought. I wouldn't expect microbial growth to be significant for at least a few months.

I tend to agree. I have come across some old-hands who service softeners who say the same. They swear by the mechanical reliability of some of the old mechanisms and say they were much easier to service. One thing I am not sure about is the frequency of recharge. It obviously depends on usage. If it is daily then I can see the metered may be better if demand varies. But I had assumed that the recharge would be in the order of every few weeks, in which case demand would be smoothed and a timed softener would be adequate. Personally, I am tempted to buy second-hand and larger, perhaps ex-commercial, ion-exchange vessel, so requiring less frequent recharge, and combining it with a tried-and-trusted timed mechanism. Much cheaper, reliable and easier to service. Just my tuppence.

@richi are you drawing a distinction between metered and timed softeners? I would be interested in your reasoning. I have been thinking about the same subject.

Is the downside of a suspended floor that it compromises the insulation by necessitating an air gap beneath?

Off topic. @JSHarris Its interesting that the one measure that is closest to being at the limit is nitrate. Inorganic fertilisers in use around you?

Tweet from SunAmp:

?