AliG

It’s a change of use from parking/road to garden ground. As other people have mentioned it is likely that within the deeds other people may have access rights over the areas bound by the dotted lines. Even if they don’t the council might not want to reduce available parking and manoeuvring space so that you can have a larger fenced in garden. They have to consider the impact on everyone.

I think the best way to do the spots is to seal the insulation above and create a service cavity between it and the plasterboard. Alternatively you could seal the individual lights, I’d like to hear from someone who abs tried this though. At the sides I’d tape the PIR to the joists and make sure the plasterboard is sealed at the floor joint before you put down flooring or skirting boards.

I did exactly what you did at the ceiling to save money. However, we then found there was MVHR ducting above the ceiling and had to insulate it. So it only works if there is nothing that needs to be warm up there. Also there are air tightness issues with lights etc in the ceiling. You can do it in either place on the walls at the side of the room. However, it is probably better on the roofline as you can then use the space and have it airtight. Airtightness is actually the biggest issue here probably, you can get the u-values, but it is hard to make sure there are not draughts in the eaves, or where lights are in the ceiling. I suspect keeping insulation at the roofline is best for this, but even then only if it is all foamed up, taped etc.

If I look at the first two plans it looks like your mum has two spaces and the neighbour has one. But looking at the Google Maps picture it doesn't look wide enough to park three cars, although has he got some bins at one side there and is then stealing some of your mum's space to still have a parking space? It does look pretty clear that the boundary between the spaces is in line with the boundary between the houses. Maybe the previous owners just didn't;t mind him being over the boundary as they didn't need the space. If it isn't wide enough for three cars and there is basically a space for one car each why would you want to make life awkward for someone for the sake of a tiny bit of extra garden. On the other hand is the neighbour being cheeky and using one and a half spaces by using it for storage as well? Also whose car is that parked in front of the garage. If you made the neighbour move over, then they couldn't park there either. Does your mum need this kind of hassle with neighbours? Ignoring my personal opinion, I agree with other people, it is highly unlikely that you own what is basically the road and can enclose it. The deeds appear to show the neighbour owning the spot in front of their garage, if they actually parked there, you wouldn't be able to get to your garage. If you do own it, you would likely need planning permission to enclose it and it would likely be refused. I see a lot of people locally in modern estates trying to do this, where they try to enclose amenity ground around their house which is on their deeds. It often gets knocked back.

We twice extended a building warrant on a large extension on our last house. It seemed like it was just a formality, you called them up and paid £50 for a year's extension. I don't believe they need to be in place constantly. We just paid for an extension to get them to come and get it signed off. This then took over a year so we paid again. So if building a house, I believe you should have one in place to start, you can then apply for an extension when you need to get it signed off. Indeed that is the position we are in on our current house. The warrant will have expired and we will pay to extend it soon for the sign off. These are the Edinburgh rules, it confirms my thought that you only have to have a warrant when you start. https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/building-warrants/completion-certificates/2

I was wondering that, she seemed to think that this legislation made it harder for them to avoid answering us. As an aside the guy who is a planning officer is currently dealing with 80 cases and it is a real struggle. He does not work in Edinburgh. I feel for these guys, it is a hard and necessary job and we have dealt with other officers in the past who have been very helpful and proactive, but not this one specific officer. The architect has dealt with him twice and both times have been a nightmare.

We had some friends round the other day - one is a lawyer and one is a planning officer! The lawyer recommended that before I put in a complaint I request some of our planning file under the Environmental Information (S) Regs 2004. This is somewhat like a FOI request and forces them to give me the planning files to see what they have been up to particularly as regards whether or not they ever actually consulted Scottish Water.

The Celotex will give you enough insulation. Make sure it is well sealed as @Nickfromwales points out. It sounds like you can use either the kind of build up shown above - 22mm board, overlay panels, tiles or board plus screed on top of it. I might disagree with Nick here. If you have room for the 80-90mm build up of 22mm chipboard plus screed plus tiles I would do that. The reason is that you are going to need a high flow temp / floor temp to heat that area. I think this will work better in a heavier floor. TBH I would be worried that you are going to struggle to heat the space. What kind of glazing will it have? 50% glazing is close to a conservatory. Is it 50% including the internal walls to the rest of the house? If it is not triple glazed you will struggle to put out enough heat from the floor. You might well need the oil boiler for colder times when the required flow temp will be too high for the ASHP. In my last house we retrofitted the kitchen with UFH in this manner and I had to run the flow temp at 62C to keep the room warm in winter. It really struggled. I think we only had 100mm Celotex under the floor however and I didn't do it myself so don't know how well it was done.

I am unsure about the frame issue. We have internal fire doors and they just have standard MDF frames, I have never been asked about the frames before and I feel that BC is mainly concerned re the doors and seals. I do think replacing the frame also is the best idea. I suspect that the only thing that makes those fire door frames is that they are pre routed for the intumescent strips. The ply doors are simply the very cheapest option if you want to keep the price down, nicer doors and frames equals more cash, just depends on what you want to spend. If you replace the frame with a narrower frame, it might be possible to get an opening that is either wide enough for a 838mm for to fit, or say get it to 826mm which you can probably achieve by cutting 6mm off each side of a 838mm fire door. Different doors seem to allow between 3 and 9mm to be cut off each side. It might indeed be cheaper to have a new frame and standard door as well as look neater once it is done.

If the floor is already well insulated underneath then the 20mm on top of the boards would probably suffice. But if you didn't see it fitted I would be wary of how well insulated it is underneath. Usually builders just hang a little bit of rockwool and don't do it very carefully. You should probably be looking at a build up with a least 0.15 U-value if putting UFH on top of it. You will need more than one loop due to the size of the room as the max loop size is usually 100metres of pipe. You should do a calculation of how much heat output you need for the room and how close to space the pipework for your desired floor temp. Why are you connecting it to both the ASHP and oil boiler?

If you don't want to do the cutting and lipping, you can get made to measure FD30 doors for around £200, just google bespoke FD30 doors and many companies who do this appear. I am not sure how much work the lipping is and whether this is worth the extra £100ish.

You need a FD30 door blank. These can usually be reduced in size as much as you like. https://www.builderdepot.co.uk/44mm-plywood-fd30-fire-door-blank-2135mm-x-915mm-7ft-x-3ft Fire certificate https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/akeneomedia/PDFs/J000259/FD30_Half_Hour_Door_Blank_Certificate.pdf However, you need to relip the cut edges. Even cheaper https://www.doorsuperstore.co.uk/product/hardwood-solid-core-unfinished-brazil-door-blank-lipped-fd30-1.html

It seems clearly that an error has been made here. Did he not approve the previous NMA, normally they go back to the same officer? Lauaghably he is refusing the NMA that you already have. The bifolds would to alter the massing of the house or appearance from the public domain which are his main concern. This is the roof and garage door change already approved (I assume that the roof was also part of that NMA). The difficulty that you now have is contacting him to get this point over. It may be that you need to email his boss or speak to the council's complaints department if he won't speak to you. An alternative that I have had some success with is emailing the council's main planning helpdesk and explaining the issue then having them contact the officer.

Is the opening size the same? If not I don't think it needs an amendment unless you are in a conservation area. I think it would be the same as replacing a window which does not need planning approval. Can you post the wording from the refusal. It would seem quite a surprising thing to refuse or need to go back to full planning. A window change should be an amendment at worst unless it materially impacts on a neighbour. Unfortunately there is no statutory definition of what is non material.

Cheapest combination is probably some kind of rockwool between the rafters and PIR below. If you used really cheap rockwool with 0.044 conductivity at 150mm between the rafters, this costs just £2 a square metre. Something like Knauf Earhwool 44. Then 100mm PIR under the rafters at £13ish a square meter then your insulation cost is around £15 a square metre. U-value looks to be between 0.13 and 0.14. It is around £10 more a square metre in materials to use PIR backed plasterboard, but there is less labour involved. However, you would struggle to get 0.15 with rockwool and PIR backed plasterboard. You would need better insulating rockwool which is much more expensive. To use PIR between the rafters and PIR backed plasterboard under the rafter would come in at about £30 a square metre - 120mm PIR plus 72.5mm plasterboard - I kicked off a couple of pounds for the saving on plasterboard. More insulation below the rafters tends to be more efficient as there is no bridging from the rafters, but you will lose some head height.

It seems to be an AEG, if you look at the specs, they are exactly the same size and they have the same pattern on the grill over the fan at the back. The AEGs seem to be much cheaper, although the ones with all digital controls are a similar price. https://www.johnlewis.com/aeg-bps355020m-built-in-single-steambake-electric-oven-stainless-steel/p4251281 https://www.johnlewis.com/aeg-steambake-bps555020m-59cm-built-in-single-electric-oven-a-energy-rating-stainless-steel/p4977057

Why does the fence have to be straight? Looking at the plan, it suggests that the fence was placed inside the boundary. It is not clear why, but presumably you were OK with this until you checked the deeds. Why not decide which features you want on your side and which on his side and try to weave the fence back and forward it at all possible. You wouldn't really be any worse off if this means he gets a few square metres in some spots. I have a similar situation between my ouse and the houses on two sides. There are so many plants between the houses that it is almost impossible to know where the boundary is exactly. I haven't bothered checking, it doesn't make much difference to me as it is inside an area that isn't made use of anyway.

I don't think you have done anything wrong or unexpected. Most of my house at the moment is sitting 3-4 degrees warmer than outside at the moment. The only areas that are not warmer than outside are the garage and a cupboard that have no windows at all. The WC with a small obscured window which faces north is still a couple of degrees warmer than outside. In an insulated space with windows solar gain is likely to make it warmer than outside. I don't think that changing the materials would make much difference to this. You can limit the solar gain via shading, sizing and orientation of windows, but without some kind of active cooling method that is as well as you can probably do. I am finding that the air temperature stays high well into the night at the moment. Opening windows will help during the nigh, but mainly in the say 2-8am period.

That's just bizarre, they hardly make things better!

I didn't realise that was the link to their application. Looking at the previous refusal in 2019 it appears that every piece of work they have done has come with an enforcement notice for not keeping to their original permission. A total of nine enforcement cases. There appears to be an outstanding enforcement notice from 2018 on the side extension 2018/1775/ENF. This would normally be permitted development, but because the house is on a corner it is not and they did not apply for planning permission. It was outstanding when the report was written in 2019, I cannot look it up. I would try and find out what has happened to this. I don't see how they can't have to apply for retrospective permission. Planning was already refused for the garage last year. I would be enquring why this has not been enforced and they are being allowed to apply again. As nothing has changed, it should be refused again. It also appears that the council owns a strip of land between the pavement and the gates, so they do not actually have legal access. There is also a post box that they have built the driveway around. This I note is not shown on their plans and would again suggest that they don't actually own the land. It looks to me as if they are just chancers and have figured out that the Council is not willing to fight them to enforce things, so they just do whatever they like. Also that gazebo type thing in the garden would need planning permission as it is in front of the house.

Was there any communication in that period or reason for delays?

Outdoor pools are a nightmare to heat, most people only use them a few months a year. For me though the issue would be keeping leaves and stuff out of it, this would be almost impossible in our garden. What started me on it was the plans for, I think Mark Wright's new house with a pool and massive outside seating area etc. That looks great on a plan, less good in our weather for half the year.

I am not sure how relevant the dropped curb permission is. Could easily claim it is just for storage.

Yeah. He was talking about someone putting in an outdoor pool. I said they are crazy as they cost a fortune to heat and would need constant cleaning. He said it’s ok the staff just do it.

1. They use larger heavier pots and gas ranges are probably less likely to break under severe use. 2. Some things such as using a wok might be easier with gas. 3. Gas ranges are probably cheaper. 4. The chef doesn’t have to clean their own hob! I presume the ban will extend to commercial kitchens at some point. You do get commercial induction jobs now.