AliG

A very interesting thread. As the inspector says, the matter of the use of the building needs to be resolved and there is a 10 year limit on this. However if you do not uphold enforcement to get rid of the building, it might be hard to argue that once a building is there, it cannot be used for residential purposes. Thus I suspect the case is weak here. The fact that there is not adequate drainage might be an argument against residential use, but that could be remedied, although it would cost them. Deliberate concealment seems the way to go. It may be that the LPA considers it quite awkward to gather evidence of deliberate concealment and so is just trying to avoid the issue. I do not know how high the bar for deliberate concealment is, but no doubt the owners will claim you could see the bricks and perhaps importantly they applied to pay council tax. I wonder if the hay bale guy was paying council tax? They seemed to make more of an effort to conceal the building and the fact that people were living there. Getting rid of the cesspit, which is probably the main nuisance, seems the best course of action. It looks like you cannot enforce building regs more than 12 months after the work took place https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200128/building_control/38/building_regulations/3 For a normal home, however, the problem would be an inability to sell it and that would force you to comply eventually. I doubt the people living in the caravan care about that.

Outfox The Market have confirmed that they have no tariffs with a standing charge at the moment. Thus if you are a below average user, as many people of the Forum are, you could game the system and move to them to save money. On the other hand if you are an above average user, like me, you should leave as they are over charging you. They used to have high standing charges and low unit rates, so likely had a higher than average usage customer base. They have no doubt calculated that they can earn more under the price cap by not having standing charges.

After a lot of work I have discovered what has happened with my rates. I consider it very sharp practice and am not pleased. The current price cap is oft quoted as 4p for gas and 21p for electricity. However, this is actually based on a total capped price of £1277 per year less a standing charge. The supplier is free to allocate the cap between the standing charge and unit price at the average consumption used for the cap. This is 3100 kWh of electricity (soon to fall to 2900 I think) and 12000 kWh of gas. I did not know that they could do this. What my supplier has done is put me on a tariff with higher unit prices and no standing charge. At the assumed use for the price cap this would be price neutral but at my much higher usage it is considerably negative. I have calculated what I would pay my current supplier - Outfox the Market and Octopus at the variable capped prices. I would pay 13% of £900 less to Octopus. More than half the cost of electricity is distribution and overheads. Gas is much cheaper to distribute. However, this does mean that the price of gas is going up much faster than electricity and so the differential is getting smaller. I was paying around 6x more for electricity than gas last year. It is now 5x and I expect it to fall to around 4x with the next price cap change.

Why are you paying above the cap? So I have checked, Outfox the Market emailed me saying that if I did nothing they would put me on the Standard Variable Rate with a yearly price quoted, not a price per unit. The prices are 23.3p for electricity and 4.8p for gas. These are 15% and 20% above the price cap. Apparently the scam that they are running is to put you on a green tariff that is not included in the cap. This kind of thing drives me up the wall. Will take loads of my time to get fixed. I will get started on the move to the correct Standard Variable Tariff at Octopus.

Fixed tariffs are not restricted by the cap. Many suppliers are offering crazy fixed tariffs way higher than the cap at the moment. Going to check this has done me a favour though as the dodgy gits have put me onto a variable tariff that is above the price cap. The price cap being expressed as a £ amount per year is a joke and makes it very hard to check that you are paying the right amount. Surely people aren't so stupid that they cannot express it as p per kWh.

I have been trying to switch to Octopus Go as I calculated that my per kWh cost would be around 19p. They have been very slow in providing info to switch and today it seems they have increased the Go rates to 7.5p off peak 30.83p peak. No point in switching now. This would give me an average price of around 24p vs the current variable price of 21p. I may switch to their variable tariff just so I can more easily switch to Go if it is cheaper. I wouldn't be surprised to see the cap higher than 24p in April.

Annoyingly I have managed to do a couple of jobs I didn't get round to before the test was done. There is a shadow gap the whole way round my hall where the glass first floor balustrade is attached. You need to get on a ladder to reach it. I discovered it is not sealed inside the gap. This is also where the stairs were attached and again there was a small gap there that you couldn't see from ground level. I have pushed 15mm foam strip up into the gap and caulked the gap where the stairs are attached. I suspect this alone might have brought the result down to 5 or less. The gap is almost 14m long. Anyway, watch out for shadow gaps when doing air tightness. There are a couple more jobs I can still do. I am pretty confident that had I managed to get these done the result would have been in the 4s. This last job seems to have stopped my doors moving when it is very windy outside. The effect has been gradually diminishing as I have completed jobs.

Netflix suggest that 1 hour of HD is 3GD and 1hr of UHD is 7GB. We probably stream/download 5 or 6 hours/day in whatever the highest available resolution is. We barely ever watch live TV.

By far the largest user of internet data is video. This will normally be compressed into h.264 or h.265 format. This is then decoded by your computer or Sky box. If you watch video on your phone they will also send a lower quality stream due to the smaller screen and Netflix etc dynamically change the quality depending on your connection speed. You can tell that a video file has been compressed as when you compress it, it comes out almost exactly the same size. At home virtually everyone has unlimited data so there are no issues. I did used to have to select lower bandwidth on Amazon/Netflix and iPlayer if I was watching it on the train as I would run out of mobile data.

I thought you might be, but decided I would just politely answer just in case. I just checked our home broadband. We consistently use between 20 and 30GB a day!

That would be considered a very low user. Unless you feel the need for faster speeds I would not bother. 5g is only available in limited areas and on a limited number of phones. In general the signal is at a higher frequency so does not travel as well as the 4g signal. Where you are likely to benefit from 5g is actually crowded areas where their is insufficient 4g bandwidth. e.g in Kings Cross Station my phone use barely usable on Three 4g due to the network being overloaded. This extra capacity may be more useful to most people than faster speeds.

I have an update on my recent experience. I recently switched back to Virgin from EE and increased my broadband speed. I tried both 500MB and 1Gig. I found that the WiFi devices in the house maxed out at between 500 and 600MB. I couldn't tell if that wass due to the maximum speed of the devices or of the Ubiquiti access points (theoretical maxims are in the 800s range), but it meant there was little practical benefit in the 1Gig product so I downgraded back to 500MB. Wired connections such as my Xbox did report an over 1Gig connection, but for example Xbox Game Pass will not download a game that quickly. Nor did it make any difference to how fast a Sky Q download occurred, presumably because of limits at their end. Basically to pay for a greater than 500MB connection at the moment is probably more for bragging rights than anything else. I also visited the USA where both my parents in law and sister in law had mesh systems installed. In my sister in law's system she was paying for 1Gig internet and getting speeds closer to 100MB. Resetting they system increased this to an over 500MB speed, but it was to unclear why over time the speed had deteriorated so much. I told her to downgrade her contract to 400MB as payments for faster speeds than this were pretty much wasted, she had been paying ore as her kids were complaining the system was slow when in fact it was a WiFi issue. (She is a widow and asked if I could look at various things around the house that weren't working properly whilst I was there). In my parents in law's place the mesh system was very prone to different speeds depending on where you were in the house, dropping from an incoming speed of 500MB to less than 100MB in some spots. I didn't have time to investigate, but I think it was clearly quite sensitive to placement of the units.

Sorry that should have said connected over ethernet. The advantage of a mesh system is it doesn't not need any cabling.

I spoke to MBC and they said that their standard detail is to attach airtightness membrane to the underside of the roof joists using battens to create a service zone. This they find better as you do not have to deal with sealing the end of the joists. They said that you can put it on top of the joists also in a warm roof construction, but the wall membrane only goes up to the underside of the joists so accounting for the area in-between is difficult.

There is also this guidance from the structural timberframe association. https://www.structuraltimber.co.uk/assets/Links/STA_Cavity_Barriers_Technical_Document_FINAL.pdf As of last year you need cavity barriers around all openings, between floors, every 10m if a wall is longer than 10m and absurd it seems at the top of the cavity. even if in our case there is no roof above this. We are using cement render board and larch cladding that needs to be ventilated behind so solid timber/seals cannot be used as they block the ventilation. Hence the pricey intumescent seals. I have just confirmed though with MBC that there is no need to ventilate around window reveals which was probably around half the cost of all of this. I have also confirmed that we can use solid battens at the corners as the ventilation is vertical not horizontal. They was another 25% of the cost. So these two details should result in a large saving.

I have queried that. Looking at the architect’s drawings they have it around all openings and at the top and bottom of the cladding. I wonder if the builder has also priced to put it behind the larch. Doesn’t seem to me to be any point of having it around the larch if it is open between the strips. TBF the architect only produced the drawings a few days ago and I have queried the estimate.

I wondered about that. So do you just tape the wall membrane to the OSB then and not have to do anything else at the roof?

Thanks guys. Because of the ventilated cavity the architect has specced the Tenmat intumescent, expanding cavity barriers which cost around £10 a metre. I note looking online and from another thread that the Envirograf ones may be more like £7 a metre which would help. By normal fire stops do you mean the firesocks or do you mean timber? If you cut battens back to get airflow around the windows would you not need intumescent seals there? I was looking at the drawings and wondering how easy it would be to attach. What would you suggest instead? This was my initial though, but having looked the contractor just asked what he was to do re cavity barriers then priced up what the architect specified. I think it is a case of the architect not realising cost implications when specifying things.

Hi, Looking at he crazy pricing we have for our build at the moment, a last minute increase has come as they have added in cavity barriers and insect mesh. We have a 195sq metre build with an MBC frame clad mainly in rendered cement board but also around 70sq metres of larch cladding. At the last moment costs have come in at £5000 for cavity barriers and £2500 for insect mesh. On top of this there is an extra cost of £1140 to use black breather membrane behind the cladding and then an estimate of almost £200 a square metre for the cladding including the necessity to use black battens. The cavity is ventilated at the top and bottom. A few thoughts spring to mind. 1. The architect has specified cavity barriers at the corners. However, why not use solid battens at the corners. I don't think there is any necessity for ventilation around the corners. Solid battens would meet the regs for a cavity barrier. 2. The windows are shown as having ventilation all around. I am not sure thatches detail is necessary. The plan is to use Russell Timber alu clad triple glazing. If you take the render board right up to the window, presumably you don't need insect mesh or cavity barriers around the openings. 3. Presumably T&G larch cladding would be much cheaper. It would also eliminate a lot of the insect mesh and the need for black battens. It seems a bit of a nonsense to me to put cavity barriers behind open cladding but that is what the regs call for. Has anyone else run into these issues. The fire regs are new and stricter in Scotland. Cavity barriers in two storey houses seem entirely unnecessary to me.

Hi @Thorfun This shadow gap cladding looks interesting, who is the supplier? Can you get this kind of cladding which has extra grooves in it so that it looks like narrower pieces of cladding? Looking at issues with black membrane, insect screen, black battens etc this seems to help out with many issues.

Hi, We have a warm flat roof design. This is causing two issues - Cost and airtightness 1. Cost for the Bauder Thermoplan covering is coming in at just shy of £150/sq metre fitted, based on 145sq metres of roof. Considerably more than I expected. The breakdown is Flat areas £10,000 Perimeters and roof light upstands £6000 Outlets £1000 Drainage channels £4000 A couple of questions spring to mind. Are the numbers quoted online for flat roofs, for totally flat roofs and is it normal to charge for the upstand separately? In fairness the upstand is 3-400mm tall. Are drainage channels actually necessary on top of a fall in the roof? These have been specified by the architect, but I cannot find them in standard details? We have a considerable amount of this type of detail, where the gutter area is priced at over £100 per linear metre by the looks of things. 2. Airtightness. The builder has questioned how we achieve airtightness under the roof as there will be a number of penetrations through the ceiling. Spotlights, cabling and MVHR. He also asked how do we tape the airtightness membrane with nothing above it. My thinking is that either we put airtightness membrane across the joists and then create a service area below so the only penetrations are the MVHR which goes between the joists and could be taped up. The alternative is to use two layers of plasterboard with a service void as it would be easier to seal this for the MVHR penetrations and we would tape the joints and tape the wall membrane to it in the service void. Thoughts? Looks like the airtightness question came up earlier in the year but there were no responses.

Must be using one of these! I like most of these worktops but not a fan of the lavastone. Reminds me too much of ceramic kitchen dishes.

Not saying they made the best decision. But our installers split the panels across three single phase inverters each connected to one of the phases. Don't know if there is any benefit versus a three-phase inverter. I assumed it was cheaper for them. I think if you do this you can install 3.68kW on each phase without the G99 issue.

It poses a very interesting moral question. People are saying let's have sanctions against Russia and we cannot use the new pipeline due to Ukraine. What happens when their gas bill goes up 2 or 3-fold? Should we worry more about pensioners here who cannot turn on their heating or people in Ukraine. Of course it is a bit like borrowing money from the mafia. Once you start dealing with criminals it always comes back to bite you. Europe should not be beholden to Russia for gas, but we are, so we have to accept that for the moment.

I have calculated that my price on Intelligent Octopus will average out to around 19p so roughly 10% cheaper than the current cap that I have moved to in the last week. Then looking at the price spikes I though I should be doing this as it would also lock in my price for the next year and the cap will almost certainly rise further. I will see if they email back with a higher price. There is no sign of that on their website. The more I think about it, the person I spoke to was entirely unhelpful. I explained what I wanted to do and she said that the government guidance was not to move as it would cost me more. I said that be cheaper on Intelligent Octopus. Then she said prices had just gone up and she couldn't tell me what they were, I had to email. Meanwhile a loud alarm started to blare in the background. She was desperate to get me off the phone.