AliG

I looked a lot at bioethanol fires and decided that they were too much hassle and I was a bit worried re safety. I didn't like the idea of having to keep the bioethanol around and manually refill the fire. I have found this instead http://www.dimplex.co.uk/products/fires_surrounds/Opti-myst/cassette_600/index.htm Doesn't put out any heat. Looks pretty good from videos I have seen. Video below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnWFXS2lKs8

I have a 1700x800mm shower at the moment with a tray. The water rarely gets past the glass screen which is 1100mm. Assuming the shower head is at the end of the area then the a 1200x900 former should be fine as the water will rarely travel any further. However, Porcelanosa Butech concept shower trays go up to 1800x900 or 1500x1500 Page 143-145 of this brochure http://www.surreytiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/28.-BUTECH-2016_reduced.pdf As for the pipes under the shower area. I'm sure most of us have wives on here and get this kind of requirement. But it makes no sense. As soon as the hot water is running on the tiles they will be warm. Meanwhile for most of the year the heating won't be on so will have no effect on the temperature of the tiles. As the screed is already down of course this is largely academic. The plumbing experts will know better the risk of the trap drying out. I think you might struggle to find a trap that fits in the limited thickness you have there, I would think you need around 80mm.

Time and again if you do the calculations, because energy isn't that expensive, buying energy efficient devices doesn't make financial sense. A few years ago I was comparing a plasma and an LED tv for the kitchen. This was when there was still maybe a £1-200 premium for a LED. Plasmas use quite a lot more electricity than an LED, but it wouldn't cover the additional cost of the TV in 20 years which is less than the lifespan of the TV. You often get the same answer whether you are looking at fridges, cars, PIR insulation, heat pump tumble dryers, etc. Where efficiency really pays for itself is in high utilisation industrial and commercial devices. Airlines will switch a 767 for a 787, a 10-15% seat/mile fuel saving is massive on an aircraft which is used 16 hours a day for the next 25 years. Often for consumer devices there needs to be another advantage, e.g. thinner TVs, or the volumes have to reach the point where the price falls to a reasonable level. This is also why this is one area where government regulation is often helpful. If changes are mandated, volumes increase to bring the price down, without this the price may never get reasonable. The initial study we were looking at was 50/50 owners and renters, somewhat more skewed to renters than the housing market. Renters were very concerned about being cold. I suspect that in the world of renting there are still a lot of houses that haven't been upgraded, why care if you don't suffer the discomfort or the high bills, just the extra cost of the improvements. These still have problems of cold and damp and thus this remains a big issue for renters. Hence the regulation for a minimum EPC for rentals may well be a good thing.

What the report says that Saint-Gobain seemed to neglect to mention was that until they were asked specifically about whether they would like a home "that doesn't compromise my health and wellbeing" only 10% of people mentioned that they were concerned about this. This is the kind of question that nearly always elicits a positive response. It is somewhat vague and hard to disagree with. The top concerns are that people don't want a house that is cold in winter and don't want noise from neighbours. People do pay for these things, single glazed houses without central heating are hard to sell. People understand no central heating means a house is hard to heat, whereas they don't understand SAP scores. Indeed many on here have discussed putting in probably not required heating in case their house is hard to sell. It might be easier to sell a C rated house with heating than an A rated house without as people will take some convincing that they won't be cold.

@ProDave @Ferdinand The rules do seem to be stricter in Scotland as you cannot be over 1m if in front of the principle elevation, whereas in England it is only if next to the road. I was all set to replace the hedge in front of my house with something similar, fence plus hedge, until I saw this rule. I am hoping that we can do it by amending our site plan rather than a new permission. Can the same not be done in this case. Can the fence not be added to the site plan as a non material variation. Plainly a fence behind a hedge so it cannot be seen makes no difference to anyone. TBH I suspect the enforcement officer will take that view and just not care.

Surely he has just painted that parking space himself. I can't see how an officially sanctioned parking space would extend from the road onto the pavement. Indeed now seeing that number 14 has a driveway and looking at the original map showing space in front of number 10 and number 16 the whole situation looks very suspicious. I am guessing that all of these houses have driveways. The council does not paint bays in front of people's houses on the public road that are their own personal parking (at least certainly not here). People do not own parking on the public highway. Fair enough if it was some kind of separate parking area, but it doesn't appear to be. Around here what the council does is paint single white lines across the front of driveways to dissuade people parking in front of them. Surely the council only paint individual spaces if they are charging for parking. Depends on how unpopular you want to be, but I suspect that if you check with the highways department they are indeed all "rogue" spaces.

@readiescards can you help me out with some information on your new build up, U-values etc. Was the £37 a square metre for the area of the roof or the area of floor that the roof covers. I am guessing the area of the roof but just wanted to check. Also how thick is the insulation for that price? Currently I am showing around £55 a square metre to supply and fit Celotex XR4200. I think it drops to around £30 if I use Knauf Omnifit Stud, but the U-value would be somewhat lower, similar to that using spray foam I think. What is the R-Value of the product that you have used? I see 0.0345 on the Icynene website. If I used this with 25mm of PIR below I would get a U-value of 0.144, in reality a bit worse after thermal bridges. Are you using much thicker PIR below the trusses or are you ending up with a U-value worse than the 0.1 you were originally targeting? Thanks for your help

I too have thought about standing, but it seems that people mainly vote along party lines. We often complain about NIMBYism here. I suspect that it is very hard to get elected in local politics without supporting local NIMBYs who I usually disagree with. I once read an interview with Archie Norman. He said that he hoped he could enter politics to help things. But there was too much politics in politics and that people would stall what they knew were good ideas if you wouldn't support their ideas. People seem to have a total misunderstanding of how local government is paid for. In Scotland they have just gone through an exercise of changing the ratio of band H to band A houses from 3x to 3.65x for council tax. So around a 20% increase in band H. I hear constantly that people in band H may own a £1m+ house whereas band A may just be £70,000, yet they only pay 3x more council tax. People fundamentally don't understand that most council revenue, around 80% I believe, comes from the block grant from central government, so people who pay more income tax are already paying a considerably higher percentage of the costs of running local government. It is a very difficult equation encompassing ability to pay and fairness versus paying for what you actually use. In reality the income tax system is based on ability to pay. People on low incomes simply couldn't afford to pay for all the services that they use. In a civilised society there has to be some realisation that it is fair that everyone pays their part of the burden and that is larger the more you earn. I don't think going back to a poll tax is workable. However, it gets on my nerves to think that people believe I am not paying a "fair" share as they don't seem to know how councils are funded. The other problem of this system of course is that voting power is concentrated amongst people who don't actually pay the costs of what they are voting for hence standing on a basis of sensible spending won't get you that far.

I'd rather they cut pet projects than essential services. There should be a list of council responsibilities and then they shouldn't be able to spend money on anything else. Many councils for example have CO2 coordinators. There is national policy on emissions. There is no need for every council to have an individual policy on this nor can they impact the national policy. If there was a list of statutory responsibilities then every council could list how much they spend on each. Extra spending would need a vote. There wouldn't be a billion pound tram line in Edinburgh. That's for sure.

@ProDave why don't you send them the Edinburgh fee schedule and ask how they justify being almost three times as expensive. These fees are supposed to cover costs, not be a profit centre. I believe that is written into law. http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk//download/downloads/id/5132/statutory_addressing_fees_2015-2016.pdf

As said before, it is the same with petrol prices. Much as people grumble energy prices aren't high enough or people would do something about it. Indeed household energy is subsidised on a relative basis by having only 5% VAT. I have been looking at new cars. I would be cheaper buying a V8 that does 15MPG than a Tesla even taking into account petrol savings and the government subsidy. Indeed if you drive under 8000 miles a year fuel consumption is almost irrelevant relative to the depreciation on the car. However buying high consumption cars is discouraged as fuel costs become a higher part of running costs as the car gets older and so they increase depreciation. A V8 would cost me £600 more a year in petrol, but £2000 more a year in depreciation so I would get a diesel. Of course they might change the rules on that so I will hold off doing anything. This also allows me to bring up something I planned to post earlier - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4265584/Andrew-Fergie-s-wedding-present-home-demolished.html As the 30 year old house of Andrew and Fergie was knocked down you could see how it was built. I don't see a lot of insulation, although that was probably normal at the time.

I looked it up for Edinburgh. They charge £45 for a single house. Apparently it comes under the statutory address powers of the Civic Government(Scotland) Act 1982. Presumably there is a similar act in England. As ever the fee for these things is supposed to cover the reasonable cost. I guess that an argument can be made for £45 although it may only take a few minutes. The fee for 50 houses is only £282. If you would like a new street sign to go with your new address its yours for £205 in Edinburgh!

@jsharris I had no idea they charged for this. If you don't do it what happens when they want to put it on the council tax register. Do they just call it "house 50m from" or something like that.

It seems like this area is quite hard legally and I am not expert on it. It appears Dave that if you contract for just labour, so maybe in your case it was a kit you purchased elsewhere, then the subcontractors are treated as employees and need to be covered. But if subcontractors provide their own material and tools then they are "bona fide sub contractors" and shold have their own insurance cover. I found this guide to it here http://www.macbeths.co.uk/2010/10/sub-contractors-to-insure-or-not-to-insure/

I think the only solution is to pay twice. I don't believe that you need liability insurance.They are subcontractors who should have their own insurance, not employees. I haven't checked this but I don't see why and they would be covered by the contractor's liability insurance also probably. The issue is what happens if items that you have paid for are damaged or stolen from the site.

I have gone through the same thought process. I am going for three phase just for flexibility on the number of high power devices that may be used simultaneously. As @JSHarris you won't need 3 phase to charge an electric car and chances are most of the charging will be during the night when you won't be using any other devices. But it wouldn't take much to be using an induction hob, fast charger, ashp, oven, kettle etc all at the same time and theoretically overload the main fuse, although you would need to be running all the rings on the hob etc. So I think the thing to consider is how many items you are going to have that may require a 30amp fuse and could you be using them all simultaneously. 12kVA will only have a 60amp fuse and 16kVA 80amps. I would not think this is very future proof if you want to put in a 30amp supply to a car charger. I'd want at least 100amp fuse which is a single phase 20kVA supply in Ireland (It would be 23kVA but they round it I assume). Moving to three phase will just allow you to have even more capacity if you need it, but other than the extra capacity I doubt any items you have will benefit from a three phase supply. Some items can use t but not many. They appear to offer a 29kVA single phase supply in Ireland. I guess that is a 120amp fuse.

With the oil price having fallen so much I am expecting a rise in this and other commodity prices over the next couple of years. The US Dollar could also continue to strengthen depending on US economic policy and how Brexit goes. A large part of energy prices is not commodities but paying for the infrastructure which should continue to rise probably a little faster than general inflation. Net net I would be similar to Steamytea's forecast. However, when I have looked at 2-3 years fixes they are often at a large premium to current prices and you are paying a lot for piece of mind. If they are more than 7-8% more than a one year deal I would stick with that.

I thought so too @JSHarris eventually I found that the MVHR standards are in a different section in Scotland and weren't coming up when I was searching the standards. The normal standards are in 3.14.3 of the Scottish Regs, the MVHR standards are in 3.14.11, I had to download the entire building stands handbook to find 3.14.11. If you search for sottish building standards ventilation that clause is not included Kitchen 6 litres/sec with 13 litres/sec boost Utility room 4 litres/sec with 8 litres/sec boost Bathroom 4 litres/sec with 8 litres/sec boost Toilet 3 litres/sec with 6 litres/sec boost Just to be odd the Scottish government also produce a guidance paper that says this - http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0040/00409104.pdf NFILTRATION RATE: 5 — 10m3/h/m2 Example Ventilation Solution 4: Continuously Operating Balanced Supply and Extract (with or without Heat Recovery) Apartment Kitchen Bathroom / Shower Toilet Utility Room 1/30th floor [1] area 1/30th floor [1] area 12000 mm2 10000 mm2 10000 mm2 10000 mm2 10000 mm2 0.5 ACPH minimum 0.5 ACPH minimum and 25 -50% boost 0.5 ACPH minimum and 25 -50% boost 0.5 ACPH minimum 0.5 ACPH minimum

You're right @JSHarris, I was just editing my answer as I didn't realise @jamiehamy was proposing a ducted extractor in a house with MVHR. If you have one it should be recirculating. Reading the Scottish regs I think what I posted stands, that the MVHR should be able to provide 60l/sec of extraction of air from the kitchen. Ah. I just looked at Part F that you refer to and this has 13l/sec for continuos extract. This isn't mentioned in the Scottish regs. Eventually I found that the kitchen regulation for continuous mechanical extract is 0.5 ACPH and 25-50% boost.

Hi Jamie, I thought you had to have an extractor, but this is what the regs say - either: mechanical extraction capable of at least 30 litres/sec (intermittent) above a hob [2]; or mechanical extraction capable of at least 60 litres/sec (intermittent) if elsewhere [3] So if your MVHR has that extract rate then you don't need an extractor. The MVHR people may worry though that without an extractor the MVHR will get grease in it. Of course they can't guarantee that you don't turn on the extractor anyway. Also as I understand it, it is not ideal to have a ducted extractor and MVHR as it unbalances the MVHR. It also is bad for airtightness. I have the hob in the island, but am putting the extractor in a box in the ceiling that matches the shape of the island(it is recirculating and doesn't count anyway towards the extraction regs). Kitchen designers were pretty against the downdraught extractor. They said they are expensive and waste a lot of space in the island. I wonder though with the hob being in the island that air won't get trapped like it would against a wall and the extractor isn't necessary. Maybe someone who already has one can comment.

The one issue with a combined tap is that you can't have a boiling water tap with a flexible end if you like to use that to wash arounds the sides of the sink.

I'd never heard of a BioDisc. But having Googled it, I found something saying you need to get a larger unit to cope with the extra waste. Compost might be simpler in this scenario. I looked up environmental impact of waste disposal units and it seems they are considered better than landfill for food waste, but not as good as composting. It depends to some extent on whether the water treatment plant uses anaerobic digestion and then collects any methane. Also they do considerably increase your water usage. In Scotland this isn't something I am too concerned about, but you may be in other areas.

Just goes down the drain. Again 5 years of abuse at the hands of my family and no issues at all. I know some people compost which is great, but it is so convenient. Left overs, vegetable peel, eggs shells, tea bags. It takes everything we throw at it. I presume that food waste is broken down by biological action when the water is treated so don't believe there are any environmental concerns, although I haven't confirmed that. Certain foods rattle around and don't break up, onion skins for example seem to slide across the grinders and half lemons. But it takes pretty much everything. Just be sensible and don't put fat down it.

If we are talking kitchen gadgets people should also consider an Insinkerator waste disposal. We have one and it is constantly in use, no food waste rotting away in a recycling bin. They are quite cheap £2-300 depending on model.

We love our Quooker also. I hear people say things about reliability, but ours gets a lot of use and we have had it for almost 5 years. I do wonder if the issues are scaling in hard water areas. At least 6 or 7 people I work beside in London have them. I have never heard a single complaint. Everyone loves them. Its funny how everyone who has them loves them. Imagine turning up on Dragon's Den with a £1000 alternative to a kettle. Everyone would be out. We have a separate one at the moment. We will move to a combined one the new house (Fusion) as I just feel it will be easier to clean the worktop around one tap than two. I have been considering a Quooker Combi. This mixes boiling water with cold to create hot water at the sink and eliminate pipe losses. Our kitchen sink is around 25m from the hot water tank. Cheapest separate Quooker and 3l tank for under the sink is around £650, you can quickly move up to £1000 and above for the Fusions and larger tanks. One thing to note is a Quooker is a water heating device, so unlike other kitchen appliances it is VAT free in a new build. The above prices include VAT. There are many other makes now, some cheaper, some similar. However I don't know anyone with a different kind so it doesn't seem worth changing make when you have had a good experience and the others are a lesser known quantity.