epsilonGreedy

I gave up on Radio 4 when it changed to Radio Whinger dedicated to pursuing the interests of those expecting something free from the Government.

Solent Plastics in Romsey has a walk around showroom with every conceivable plastic storage box range. When I visited I was only looking to containerize the storage of lockers in a small sailing yacht, the same would get pricey at the scale I imagine the OP plans. https://www.solentplastics.co.uk

No worse than some of the radio comedy featured in the fringe trial slot on Radio 4.

My application includes similar succinct change descriptions, following this I have a separate heading titled "Rationale" with the prose. Think I will visit the manned duty desk at the planning office for some pre application advice and interpret the facial expression as my application is reviewed.

The said architect writes a vision document with his full planning applications which the planning officer dutifully uploads as a separate items online. The last one took 15 minutes to read. The justification prose supporting my NMA application is half a page. So flowery and emotive it is ?

I am submitting my own NMA using a diagram prepared by my architectural technician and I am wondering how much emotive prose to attach with the application to justify the essential amendment details. The local architect with a reputation for winning planning applications with his heritage designs on rural plots, writes flowery emotive prose that describes the vision behind his creation. For example his most recent application refers to a stone clad tower that creates an air of mystery suggesting an historical association with nearby castle ruins. Could a similar approach backfire in the case of an NMA?

Was it updated to match the radar tower of a Type 45 destroyer, which would make sense given the @JSHarriscomment about its training function. I think Eisenhower's D-Day HQ was based up on those cliptops behind Portchester.

Before the Russian summer fleet can loiter off the Scottish coast it first has to transit those areas the UK military previously had the ability to patrol. The notion that a Soviet battle fleet could sneak to the territorial limit of UK waters unobserved would have been unthinkable 30 years. AIS is excellent and allowed me to sail across the Channel with much less big-ship anxiety but it depends on vessels voluntarily transmitting a digital radio squawk every minute or so. It only takes a second to switch off the box of tricks that generates these squawks hence it is of no significant in a military scenario. The civilian Coast Guard contracted further 10 years ago and now has little visual coastal presence. There is the newer NCI coverage with its volunteers looking out from clifftop stations, often abandoned CG huts, however they go home at sunset.

Since the elimination of the airborne maritime surveillance section of our armed forces we are effectively blind to such incursions. Even when a concerned fisherman phones Captain Mainwearing the MOD and says "The Ruskies are here, they don't like it up-em" it takes the mighty Royal Navy two days to organised a response which involves dispatching the UK guard ship from Portsmouth, usually a 20 year old dinky Type 21 frigate, which then huffs & puffs its away to Scotland.

I heard a phrase "warmed by soil/earth insulation" or something similar which made me chuckle. The cameras did not show what insulation if anything went under the large suspended floor void.

Ok thanks, I will look for a fine-wire small mesh chicken wire having seen your mouse video link showing the mouse getting under a pencil high door gap.

I am winterizing the block & beam floor slab of my self build in anticipation that a rare celestial alignment of brickies and heritage brick supplies might occur next Spring to allow the build to continue above dpc. The 14 plastic telescopic air vents have been removed for safe keeping which leaves inviting holes for furry creatures looking for a winter home. What could I stuff in these holes to keep rodents out?

Agreed. I saw this in action locally when following a planning application nearby. The planning office is entitled to ignore the Parish Council but cannot override the opinion of the Ward Councillor. In the situation I followed the full time pros in the planning office wanted to approve. The PC and Ward Councillor objected. It was the opinion of the Ward Councillor that mandated a referral of the application to the planning committee. At the committee hearing the chairman of the committee voiced disapproval directed at the pro planner that such an easy case to approve had been brought to committee. The pro planner responded by saying the planning office wanted to approve without referral but the objection of the Ward Councillor forced the matter to committee.

Something like your C section frame ends is my plan B. Could you describe how chunky these are as I am trying to picture a cross section of the make-up in plan view..

This YouTube video is helpful, British in origin and the guy admits to his first failure with a Knauf sound insulation product and then the better results with a specific sound insulation sheet from Rockwool. The video gets interesting at 1 minute 20. Here is the product he got better results with: https://www.rockwool.co.uk/product-overview/trade-insulation-range/sound-insulation-slab-en-gb/?selectedCat=literature downloads

It is a wet day so time to plan ahead. When my garage has a roof I intend to fit a temporary wooden blank in the garage door opening, this will need to cope with 2 years of weather. For the moment I am assuming 11mm thick OSB3 sheet with a coat of paint will survive two winters of wind driven rain. My main design query is how to attach the supporting framework to the inner wall block-work in a non destructive manner with view to its later removal. The concrete floor slab at the door threshold has a 6 inch lip which looks like a useful point to butt the supporting frame upto at the bottom to form a solid lower rail to counteract the inward force from high winds. Perhaps all I need is a few frame uprights supported by the floor slab lip at the bottom and bolted through overhanging rafters at the top, thus no drilling and fixing into the wall blockwork? The garage door aperture is 2.7m wide by 2.1m high and will need to incorporate a regular size 33" wide pedestrian door also made from OSB sheet.

Not encountered that problem I am building with medium hemelites. I have encountered a few blocks with bow across the whole face and others with sizable bits of plastic junk in the block mix. I run the profile line a couple of mm off the absolute edge of the new course which means a block with a manufacturing error does not push the profile line out. I found adding water from a tipped bucket was not accurate enough, in the end I commandeered one of Swmbo's fancy ceramic internal plant pots which has the volume of about two cans of coke. If it has not rained for a week and the sand is dry I know I can start with 3 plant pots of water then I add extra water in small controlled splurts. Patience is needed so I then browse the forum for 10 minutes or cut some blocks before the mix is ready. I got a tip from two pros who laid my first two courses of heavy footing blocks after the foundation concrete pour. They wedged the wooden handle of a large builders shovel under the alloy bit that sticks out from the electric motor. I found the mixer tries to shake itself free of the shovel handle when the mortar is turning as an asymmetric lump because the mix is too dry.

Yes to all that, except the perp fatness because I noticed the pros don't worry about those. I got off to a bad start because I found laying the first course on DPC problematic and it took until the 3rd course before I stopped correcting for the aberrations in the first course. Life gets simpler when building off 3 good flat and plumb courses below, no need for mental maths like "ok two blocks down there is a wonky block with 2mm outward lean which is throwing off the spirit level applied vertically to the block face". Perfecting the mortar mix has been the greatest advance for me which required upping the plasticizer concentration to pro levels. I no longer make do with a bad mix, for example the other day I tipped a load into the wheelbarrow and though that feels dense. The first block would not level on the bed because there was no plastic bounce in the fresh mortar so I shoveled it all back into the mixer until it fluffed up correctly. My Belle 130 or 150? is too large for my mortar consumption rate and I have noticed there is less churn applied to the mix at half load, which can lead to lifeless mortar. I should have bought a smaller DIY model say 100l in size.

Both until I got to 8 blocks high at which point I am now above my Blakes profiles. I was going to reset them higher up for the final 3 courses but noticed the pro brickie team next door did not bother with profiles above 2m in height and built up corners instead. They are now at 5 meters.

That is an apt description of me laying blocks ? My internal garage block wall will not be dry lined so I am aware it will be a long term finish open to visitor scrutiny. I bed per single block out of concern that anything further ahead will start to dry before the first block has received its Morse-code admonishment. I agree that lifting blocks to a 7th course is not recommended, for the health of elbow or shoulder joints in my case. I don't lift my 15kg blocks above a 4th course now I have my 50cm high kick-along 60cm x 60cm mini platform as linked to above. This has been my best equipment purchase to date, shame it was after the elbow steroid injection. So far I have waited 24 hours for each course to set before laying the next. My concern is that by the time I am ready to return 4m to the other end of the staging the mortar of the lower course will be setting and taps applied to the next course will wobble and break the mortar bond of blocks below. Not sure what the OP's approach is on this subject.

I think we are going around in circles. 4m is 9 blocks which implies moving the staging every hour or so. 8ft planks would be more flexible, the pro brickie team next door were using 13ft planks for some reason before their kit was loaned to me. Actually you commented on how awfully slow 9 block per 50 minutes was. No disagreement with that but my fellow self build amateur in this thread expects a similar rate. As to your lengthy description of what slows down the overall block lay rate, all I can say is yes yes been there. The solo amateur brickie has to shift sand, select blocks, shift the chipped ones to a pile reserved for cutting, dust off the good ones before laying out, mix up Fab at the prescribed amount, measure & cut, hop off the staging when too many ties have dived off the mortar bed for fresh supplies. All in all I think the OP will face shifting the staging one an hour on a peak productive day.

This all sounds very familiar but to continue, when relaying that block I realize the original mortar bed has firmed up too much which means scraping off the mortar to relay fresh mortar, 5 minutes later on the 3rd block lay and after 15 leveling taps and 10 spirit level double checks you smile at the perfect 3D alignment, then I see the wall tie still sitting on the adjacent block mocking "you forgot me again".

Exactly my point. If the OP purchases a just 4m run of trestle staging he is going to be shuffling it around a lot and sometimes when not convenient hence a longer run of conventional scaffolding might payoff in the longrun. Having been involved in self build for a year now I have learned that brickie lay rates are as fanciful as the size of the fish that got away or the height of the big wave a yachtsman encountered in a gale. If an amateur self build brickie would lay blocks at 1 per minute for 6 hours on a slow day x 47 weeks per year and given a lowish rate of £1.30 a block, then he should turn pro because an annual salary of £109k a year beckons.

In a debate on a yachting forum I read that the French have contiguous maritime radar coverage for the whole country whereas in the UK the Russian fleet can pitch up off the Scottish shore and the first the MOD hears about it is via UK fishing trawlers. Was your station closure related?

When it comes to hedge disputes in old villages, 25mm a year is significant. Thanks for the full explanation, the county highways officer must have doubted my ability to comprehend the unabridged explanation.