epsilonGreedy

Looking a little deeper at the problem the root cause of the damp problem in the house in the video is that an old property which presumably has no dpc or cavity was then smothered in a cement render that prevents the masonry walls from venting off moisture through evaporation. Could this be the root historical problem at the OP's house?

It is worth mentioning the City & Guides qualification in bricklaying, I think it sits between a formal apprenticeship and a two week experience course. I wonder if the status of C&G could lead to someone else paying the tuition fees at least in the short term. https://www.cityandguilds.com/qualifications-and-apprenticeships/construction/trades/6705-bricklaying#tab=information Thinking longer term there are opposing economic factors to consider: Modern construction techniques will surely lead to a reduction or complete elimination of bricks and blocks used in a new build's construction. Conversely I think there is a demographic bulge of UK citizens about to retire form the building industry, so the short-term supply/demand imbalance is good for a new entrant. House building will never get outsourced to a call center in India or an AI algorithm running in a cloud computer server in Seattle.

The Defamation Act was not created to provide a universal excuse for elementary acts of maladministration in HM Government.

No but when you directly dismiss another forum member's comment by posting: and then you proceed to execute a debating u-turn by subsequently agreeing that a licence undermines the copyright argument and then agree that the inclusion of the signature box which associates the OP with the application is probably central to the issue, then you could acknowledge the basis for that u-turn. It would be possible to prove libel regardless of copyright ownership of elements in the published material. If there was an axe murder in your local village and a prowling paparazzi snapped a shot of you swinging an axe at a tree stump in your garden and that photo was licenced by a national newspaper for an article on the hunt for the axe murderer, who would you sue?

Indeed and in order to establish that, it is first necessary to understand actual preceding events. I provided the most significant clarity on those events which were then confirmed by the OP. So you agree with me there is probably a licence granted to the LA when a planning application is submitted. You could at-least acknowledge that I was the first to raise this concept in the thread. This is a comical extrapolation of the concept "in the public interest" which pertains to the principal of freedom of expression and its application in journalism. I am pleased that you now agree with on what the central issue is. My key point is has the LA created a false impression that the OP is a co-sponsor of the neighbour's application, if this a credible complaint then demonstrating that personal damages have occurred is a simple by-product. In practice the threadbare legal department at the LA will not welcome having to spend even 5 minutes considering a dispute caused by the planning office tripping over its own shoe laces. The head of the planning departments knows this and will resolve the matter in 10 minutes, dealing with bruised forum egos here will take much longer.

I am the only contributor to this thread who corrected interpreted events which the OP then confirmed.

So you agree with me? I think an inexperienced planning officer has made a small error and will get a minor rebuke from the head of the department if the OP pursues the matter. If the OP starts shouting "copyright" at the planning office he will undermine his own case by diverting focus away from the central issue which is personal reputational damage.

It is highly likely that when submitting a planning application the applicant grants a licence to the planning office to publish the contents of the application. Since we are talking about a branch of government utter incompetence is always a credible theory however given that publishing planning applications is such a well established procedure I think it could be argued that the licence is implied if not stated explicitly. The issue highlighted by the OP is whether the incompetent handling of that right to publish has constituted an act of libel against the OP. The planning office abuse of information has created the impression that the OP is actively cooperating with the neighbour and colluding in the active building of an unapproved development. This represents a false statement about the OP and could lead to long-term damage to the OP's reputation in the local community.

Just mention libel and consequential damages. This is not a copyright issue.

It sounds as though the planning officer copied a site block plan from the OP's application to the new application by the neighbour to provide context. This was done for the internal convenience of the planning office. Tis a bit naughty because it gives an impression to the general public that the OP is cooperating with or supporting the neighbour's application, local grievances arising could adverely affect the OP for years. In the same position I would demand the planning office re uploads the diagrams with a handwritten note saying "Copied from application LA123xyz (Mr Willbish) without permission by council staff for internal administrative convenience".

Would this be under the sash window frame? Under the cill?

Not sure of the detail yet but yes I will not position the cill so far back it will touch the inner masonry wall. The special cill for sash windows is 225mm deep which is 35mm deeper than the typical cast cill. I will be hoping for a 25mm cavity gap which I will stuff with a 1" PIR board cut off. I also intend to enhance my wall u-value with PIR backed plasterboard. With a combined 57mm of PIR at this potential cold bridge I hope the problem is minimized. It should also be possible to reduce the area of the cold bridge by letting the inside of the sash window rest on 3 150mm wide cut blocks with the rest filled with insulation. I cannot find any cill installation instructions online that define the depth of the protruding lip of the cill beyond the surface of the facing bricks, hence at this point I am guessing how small the token cavity is between cill and inner wall.

Ok good to hear the concrete core is normal. The ones I took delivery of were from a national artstone brand name that sells direct over the internet and I wanted to check the core was not a sign of an inferior manufacturing process. Regarding the structural point, I am looking at a specialist type of cill designed to overhang further into the cavity in order to support a sash window installed with a full brick reveal. The aperture of the outer brick will be 70mm smaller each to hide the sash box and allow for more glazed area. At the moment I cannot visualise how much of the total window weight will sit on the cill's cavity overhang even so I am reassured by the presence of the concrete core.

A few months back I took delivery of a batch of cast artstone window cills for my self build neighbour. When carrying them into the garage I noticed the cavity facing side of the cill looked like a regular concrete masonry block. I got the impression cills were formed from a concrete block core with a thick outer shell of poured coloured artstone mix. Is this normal? Having seen this type of make up I am now less concerned about the strength of these cills.

Entrepreneurs learn what investors want and so emit appropriate signals to attract investment. The hi-tech early stage venture system of Silicon Valley knows that 70% of start-ups fail but those losses will be covered by the big investment wins like eBay or Uber. The system breeds ambitious entrepreneurs who pursue big ideas with single-minded obsession. A start-up aiming to open the first hotel on the moon will be punished through lack of follow-on investment rounds if it pivots to running donkey pilgrimage tours in Northern Spain. Silicon Valley angel investors talk in disparaging terms of "life-style" businesses formed out of starts-ups that abandon the big founding dream. There might be a sustainable business in operating donkey tours but it will not payback the early angel investment.

The consensus evolving here is that Ordnance Survey employ jolly nice chaps. You might find an outline of your home at this zoomable OS map online: https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk Put your postcode in the search box. My newly plotted house outline is not showing up yet.

I think we are lucky on that score, the principal elevation is towards the posh road even though practical access is the other side. I had to negotiate with our postman because his walking route preference is to enter the self build plots via the tacky road name, he explained that if we chose the other road he would have to shuffle our post manually across to delivery walking route. I dug my heels in and we are still friends, he stops for regular building progress updates. The main problem is that the planning permission shows a gated front door access path and this will require a 2m hole in a hedge I would rather retain since no one will want to approach the house on foot from the official front door side. I have discussed with planning at the duty desk and the body language was not positive, "the problem is you got planning permission on the basis that your house would be engaged with this road".

I was able to get our chosen house name into the OS mapping system during the visit. He also plotted our future boundary hedge even though at present it is just a freshly seeded ridge of mud. I am holding out on this payment as well. Those organizations with a commercial incentive to find us have us well mapped by now. Royal Mail even deliver to the wrong road on the other side of the plot for our convenience even though we chose the other road name bordering our plot for address purposes because it sounds far more posh.

His display gave him a constant error margin. He explained the old system was dependent on a radio link with the company vehicle and at times required creative positioning of the car for optimal links to both the differential broadcast and the site pole.

I had been worrying about my final ridge height and had considered getting a surveyor in for a hi-tech mid build verification of my build elevation so far. Then someone in a fancy new car turned up and started walking around holding a surveyor's pole with a white gps dome mounted on top. Apparently OS and local authorities try to cooperate and exchange information about news builds so that national maps can be kept up to date. The man from OS asked permission to map my floor plinth and while chatting I asked what the current accuracy of his coordinates were having already established that the equipment uses a live differential GPS system with cross checks against known UK land positions. The answer was 2cm horizontally and 3cm vertically. Anyhow the net result is that I now have some highly accurate heights for my plot reference stake, footing wall and the nearby reference drain cover in the road. It pays to be friendly to officialdom. His new plots of my house position were immediately shown superimposed on an OS map system he carried around, the position looked good which was a relief having done my own setting out. I was told some commercial OS mapping services will show my house position within days though I doubt the free to view stuff online will be updated for months or years.

You aspirations look unrealistic because you want to build £500k home with £150k equity plus mortgage while living in your present house. Answers to the questions below might help others suggest a viable plan. Do you need to maintain a roof over a family during the self build period? What is the square footage of your current house? How many people will live in your finished self build? Do you have a full time job? Is there an option to extend your current house? There are few areas of the UK where £80k will buy a plot large enough for an executive 2500 sq ft house. p.s. The industry works on ££ per square meter

I need to finish a 110mm drainage pipe that emerges from the footing blockwork at a 30 degree incline. At ground level it will be located 2ft away from the house. There are two types of rodding point access cover on the market, an oval aluminium cover and a slightly larger square plastic cover. Which is preferred when the access point will be in the middle of a mowed lawn? My inclination is to buy the smaller metal one and set it in a concrete collar about 250mm across about 1" below ground level to ensure it dodges the rotary blade of a mower. The downside of the smaller metal cover is that it might get lost over time. Metal: https://www.plastics-express.co.uk/underground-drainage/Underground-Drainage-110mm/110mm-oval-aluminium-rodding-eye-p-pte335?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8Zjvx_SM5QIVBEPTCh3Kbw7JEAQYASABEgL0AfD_BwE Plastic: https://www.screwfix.com/p/floplast-d884-upvc-rodding-point-socketed-110mm-black/82622

My site insurance is about £500 p/a with all the optional cover bits removed from the quote. Start an online quote at Protek then you can adjust the duration and scope of the cover to get an idea where the underwriters perceive the risks are. Private tool cover and cover for hired plant were the pricey options I recall.

Sounds ideal for my incremental move in plan.

Did you also fit isolators at the appliance end of each pipe?