epsilonGreedy

The software developer in me finds the casing in your plagiarism unsettling to read. Like all trendy programmers I have adopted camel casing in my code hence "DIY Max" should be written diyMax if it is an instance of the concept or DiyMax for the overall concept.

While visiting various Builders Merchants over the past two years I have often observed trade counter staff struggling with their internal IT systems. Apparently the head of Travis Perkins admitted in 2016 he was hoping to replace his 1980's green-screen Sellotape and elastic band IT mess with a swanky new ERP system. According to The Register that systems renewal project has been aborted and the IT vendor paid out £4.2 million in compensation which is peanuts compared to the £111 million write of for projects costs. https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/14/infor_pays_uk_retailer_travis/

The big UK banks are well known for their antiquated IT mess. A big upgrade starting on a Friday might have been their best plan. The current rolling Aviva outage has the hallmark of an escalating crisis. At 15:45 I could log into my online policy but not drill into the detail. One hour later the self admin portal was timing out on internal gateway errors and now the blanket "improvement" message is being shown for home and car insurance self admin and new quotes.

The tale of woe continues... I drove 30 minutes back to the same police station (one downside of living in a self build rural idyll) and log the laptop back into my online policy account. The Aviva Web site responded with: No insurance business knocks its primary policy system offline for hours in the working day to make "a few improvements". This is a catastrophic systems crash and the Aviva employee I spoke to admitted this was an unscheduled outage.

The insurance company said that in the case of an online application I am deemed responsible for the policy details. The details have been corrected online within a few minutes of my phone call. So was the insurance agent who handled my call. He said that more typically the conversation is acrimonious because the policyholder is facing 6 points and fees to release the vehicle from a police compound. My roadside manner must have made the difference, after 5 hours of sitting in A&E I as frazzled and in no mood for a combative conversation with a traffic cop.

The first roadside question on Saturday related to a possible recent change of plate involving a personal registration number.

The officer at the station desk initially assumed I had turned up to recover my impounded car. At the roadside I must have given a reassuring impression that the uninsured status was due to a fault elsewhere in the system.

The reality behind my headline is far less interesting than it sounds and involves a miskeyed car registration number combined with an improbable statistical coincidence. Saturday morning was sunny and so Swmbo declared she was going to complete her Times crossword outside on her adopted patio, the patio is actually the garage floor plinth minus the walls. The step up to the floor is high because I need to rise the external ground level with another 200mm of hardcore and the garage footing wall is at dpc. While catching up on US election news I heard a scream outside the static caravan and found Swmbo stemming the flow of blood from a 2" gash on the outside of her ankle. She had somehow sliced open her leg while mounting the footing wall carrying a cup of tea and the newspaper, the bricks are engineering blues with a sharp edge. I examined the wound and claimed since there were no arterial blood spurts I should finish my breakfast, that joke was not appreciated. Six hours later plus 1 x-ray and 4 stitches we headed home from A&E. Half way back I clocked a police patrol vehicle doing a u-turn and following me. Next came blue flashing lights and an indicator, so I took the hint and pulled over. The computer gadetry in the patrol car had flagged my car as having no insurance which was odd because I had renewed in July on one of those 2-cars 2-drivers combined policies for just £400. After much head scratching in my local police station today where the desk officer agreed the insurance docs looked ok his sharp eyed boss noticed I had insured my car with the right number plate except it was year 15 rather than 16. Can you believe it, the vehicle for my registration number minus one year is for the same manufacturer and model number, just a different colour.

A Google street car photo has been useful in my little boundary dispute. The 2005 photo shows a nearly dead hedge positioned where I believe the boundary should be. There is no sign of the hedge today, instead there is just an extension to my neighbour's lawn.

Is it possible that the collective wisdom of the forum has not considered one possibility namely that full time professional planners are competent ? I have a suspicion that the objection from git at the back was dismissed by the planners and one of the "nice" near neighbours is lying and was the source of the credible objection.

Some people discover such behaviour can create a platform for their success in life, it is learned behaviour. A fair number of very senior corporate executives are certifiable psychopaths.

A householder minor planning application is very cheap in my part of the world and would help clarify matters. A thumbs up from the planners would not legally trump the legal constraints in your deeds so you will a solid thumbs up from your solicitor. Do school children walk past your property?

When I asked a similar question the Planning Office responded saying "we would not object in principle though we would defer to the opinion of highways".

Indeed. Some of the advice in this thread is good providing the neighbours are rational normal people in the first place. I sense from the first post that this is not the case and so different tactics should be employed.

I am trying to understand the elements of roofing costs. Given a starting point of trusses erected, an easy step up to roof height from 3rd lift scaffolding, 30 degree pitch in a sheltered location, underlay, battens already installed and the customer funding materials, what is the daily rate for a slater in a low cost provincial English country? My own research suggests they are some way down the trades pay scale compared to gas-safe fitters, electricians and brickies.

I am not unfamiliar with this problem. Budget for 20 minutes per delivery including a few extra minutes for wiggling the waggon into a tight space, extending the stabilizer arms, raising the waggon onto the arms, lowering the sides, threading webbing straps through pallets, fine tuning the position of wooden pallets on the ground, finding the assorted small items the driver is adamant were not included in the load, signing the chit and then reversing some of those steps. In my experience builders put much effort into eliminating avoidable effort, hence they get creative in positioning deliveries as close as possible to the point of consumption. At the end of the day what can the neighbour do short of mounting a Tiananmen Square style body blocking protest? If the police are called they will lose interest and dismiss a squabble over a private drive as a civil matter. Have a copy of your deeds printed in large text with the section on rights of access highlighted.

At ground level I see "No Service" 70% of the time though the occasional voice call comes through if it is not raining or overcast. Up on the 3rd lift scaffolding 1m above gutter height the Ookla speed test utility on my iPhone reports 5Mb to 10Mb with WIFI turned off. I reckon this is a concept worth pursuing. After confirming the tower location I will need to look at yachting and canal boat forums because these communities invest in external antennas for internet access in marginal locations. My plan is to get the antenna fixed to the chimney before the underfelt and slate goes on to achieve an optimal leak free routing of the cable.

My plot is located in a topographical cauldron which is typically 2 degrees colder than the BBC forecast on a still winters night and the position also suffers marginal cellular reception. In order to operate a serious home office I need to have a back-up for internet connectivity when the BT OpenReach connection suffers an outage. My plan is to mount a GSM external antenna high up on one of the 3 chimneys sprouting out of my newbuild. Looking at an online map of cellular masts I think there are two candidate masts. Is there any way to find the mast ID that my mobile phone is connected when it gets 1 or 2 bars as I walk around the 3rd lift scaffolding?

I don't have one yet. The truss company measurer is visiting next week. I will sound him out and also go back and review the notes on the original building control drawing. Ah ha. These twisted straps tie the truss directly to the wall rather than introduce the intermediate truss to wall plate fixing to the overall solution. On first sight this direct fixing seems better now I am wondering if a twisted tie every 2m is superior to the truss to wall plate connection every 600mm. I like the idea of long straps. I noted these on another build last year, they came 1m or maybe more down the block wall.

How many BC stages have been signed off so far?

I don't think HMRC would be motivated to reject a VAT reclaim submitted earlier than BC sign off. Their concern must be self builders stretching the rules the other way and accumulating VAT receipts for routine householder DIY projects post move-in or buying stuff for family & friends. There is one English Council down south that operates a pre building control sign-off habilitation safety check a bit like the Scottish system other than that I'd say just move in when you can tolerate the state of partial completion. Are the smoke alarms working?

This was the generally accepted wisdom until the much discussed case of the self builder who moved in and then spent ages flapping about with some heating design/sign off issue. Their VAT claim was rejected because in their case HMRC started the 3 month claim clock from the date of effective habitation. Does anyone know how that saga ended?

That is a keenly priced quote for Protek. My build is 10% larger with no hired plant cover but a £10k static caravan is included. From memory it was around £400 at first renewal and similar for the first year. Protek told me 6 months ago that one year of cover was their quotation sweet spot at present. Their quotes for 9, 15 and 18 months did not fit any logical curve. Rumours circulating on this forum about outrageous premiums for extending cover over extra years do not apply with Protek at present.

I thought the purpose of wall plate straps was to reduce the risk of the whole roof lifting off during strong winds. This risk is particularly high in my case with a hipped 30 degree roof profile likely to generate a low pressure vacuum on the lee side of the ridge like an aircraft wing. Coupled with that, my natural slate cover is lighter than manufactured tiles hence I need to ensure I get this part of the build right. Another YouTube video suggested the wallplate straps stop the trusses tugging the wall plate off during erection of the roof structure. This confuses me as I thought the wall plate's mortar bond would keep things stable as the trusses are fitted. Yet another online resource mentioned the trusses should not seat directly on a strap. There are also internal stud frame positions and maybe chasing channels to wall lights or switches that might clash with a strap. Considering all these factors how does this wall plate fitting workflow look? Bed in the wall plate 2 to 3 days ahead of the truss erection date. Finalise exact positions of internal stud walls and mark on blockwork. Same for bedroom wall lights positions. Mark up all truss seat centres on the wall plate. The either: Fit the straps carefully with rawplugs and screws into the Fibolite blocks. Erect the trusses. Or more likely because the roof carpenter will not have the patience to spectate on the rawplugging with his gas nail gun ready to fire. Fit the trusses minus wall plate straps. Carry on with the box eave carpentry. Once the pro carpentry team has finished but before the felting goes on and creates a wind lift risk, fit the straps solo.

Brilliant idea. Should I buy the low expanding stuff otherwise I am worried about the foam will push in the sides of the plastic meterbox? I was anticipating a multi year struggle with the sealant loosing its grip and the meterbox popping out a few inches. p.s. all this hassle originates from a lucky break which saved me a few £100 as the supply was shifted from the builders supply on stilts into the cavity wall. The DNO had to reconnect me from a spur originating from my other self build neighbour to a direct link to the public road. Because I had overseen the original trench digging for the builders supply I knew the temporary supply cable could be extracted 30m through the underground conduit saving them the reel of cable they had brought to the job. My reward for this suggestion is that the DNO team rerouted and reconnect the supply through the hockey stick into the cavity meterbox. They left me to hard fix the box into the cavity.