Jeremy Harris

Our 130m² 1 1/2 storey timber frame kit took 4 1/2 days to erect to the wind and watertight stage (door and window apertures just blocked off). IIRC there were three chaps working on it flat out, pulling over 12 hour days, plus a crane and driver on site for the first two days.

There's a video earlier in this thread somewhere, IIRC.

The current regulations refer to only to foundation earth electrodes, with one new mention in the 18th Ed regs (which are not in force yet - they don't apply until after January 2019) of buried reinforced concrete, which I suspect may be hard to get to comply with the requirements in a domestic scenario . Foundation earth electrodes are in direct contact with the underlying ground and have to comply with the current regs, which don't seem to have changed much from my old copy of the 17th Ed pre amendment 2, which also allows the use of "underground structural metalwork embedded in foundations". The new draft regs just add that they have to be selected to have suitable corrosion resistance and mechanical strength, which may impact on the use of things like steel piles as foundation earth electrodes, perhaps. Like the old regs when installed a foundation earth electrode they must provide a suitably low earth impedance when tested. It’s rare to find foundation earth electrodes used in a domestic installation, AFAIK, I’ve only seen them used once, and that was in a new build machine shop, around 30 years ago. The resistivity of concrete varies over a very wide range, roughly 100 Ω.m for damp concrete, around 10,000 Ω.m for air dried concrete, to around 100,000 Ω.m for oven dried concrete. Compared with the resistivity of any normal earth electrode material, concrete is exceptionally poor – even a cheap copper coated steel earth rod will have a resistivity of around 0.00000014 Ω.m, so massively more conductive than even damp concrete. Additionally, damp concrete acts as an electrolyte, so is likely to give variable impedance values when conducting an earth impedance test.

I really hate to be negative, but that cable is seriously dangerous and you have no choice but to remove it and do as @Onoff has suggested. You may well think you can live with the risk, but there are several scenarios I can think of that are outwith your control. Apart from the obvious issue of a cable that is not rated to be used when buried in insulation, so will easily overheat in use, and the obvious issue that there is a very high probability that the insulation will react with the plasticisers in the cable insulation and cause it to degrade and slowly develop internal shorts, there is also the matter of compliance with the law - that is now a fixed installation, in a kitchen, that is highly non compliant with the regulations. Please just take it out and fit an outside socket properly. The cost and time is small, and you will be removing a stack of serious risks at the same time.

To be specific, I was banned after three visits on consecutive days, but you're spot on that I wasn't told why or how often one could visit and not be banned.

From my experience I'd say the boundary between trade waste and domestic waste seems to be completely arbitrary and depends on the particular staff on duty at the recycling centre. I've not been able to find a specific definition that applies here, other than if you are operating a business you are supposed to register, and pay for, a trade waste licence (which seems fine to me). The problem I encountered was that reasonably small scale renovation (just DIY refurbishment of a bathroom and WC) was considered to be "trade waste" by our local centre, despite me turning up in a hatchback saloon car with the stuff. I've adopted a similar technique to @ProDave now, and try and cut waste that cannot be recycled into small pieces and hide it in the bottom of our wheelie bin. Seems to work, and as we are paying council tax for both the old house (in the middle of being sold) and the new build, I have two lots of recycling and wheelie bins I can use. Luckily the collections for each house are on alternating weeks, so the recycling collection week at one house will be the refuse collection week at the other house. Makes it a bit easier to not over-fill any of the bins and attract attention.

Just a word of caution about the cling film stuff. Our windows were supplied with this on the alloy parts of the frames and the external cills, plus clear film over the glazing. It did a good job of protecting the windows, but I didn't realise that it becomes extremely difficult to remove if left on for a year or so. I removed all the ground floor stuff after about 6 months, and it came off easily in large strips. I left it on the upper windows, because they were awkward to get at after the scaffolding had come down, and eventually tried to get it off about a year or so later. By that time the outer layer of the protective film had gone very brittle from exposure to sunlight and the film was extremely difficult to remove. It took me a couple of days to very carefully pick tiny fragments of film off the aluminium, using a plastic scraper and some IPA to soften the "clingy" layer (which had hardened like glue). If putting this stuff on doors and windows it's probably fine for a few months, but don't leave it on for as long as I did or you will really regret it.

I think so, yes. This trust is very local, was set up in 1982 originally, and only covers the area immediately around Salisbury. We're back in the "viewing madness zone" again - four new appointments to view in the past hour, plus we still have a handful of potential purchasers from the last week of viewing madness. I really cannot get my head around the level of demand there is around here, it seems astonishing, given that the property market in general has only been recovering fairly slowly.

Just to get clarity on the position with regards to the covenant, I spoke to a friend who is a solicitor a short moment ago. His considered opinion is that the second condition has now been effectively made void by the 1985 Housing Act, and that it would be unlikely that it could be enforced to prevent the house being used as an HMO. He's also of the opinion that, given the small size of the house (and the plot) it would be unlikely to be used as an HMO anyway, although he did highlight that the large number of students in the area mean there is a high demand for student accommodation, and there is very little in the city itself, so many students live in the outlying villages. His view was that our house may well appeal to a buy to let landlord in the area, but that none of the covenant conditions would effectively prevent that. We didn't discuss planning consent, but I'm pretty damned sure that it would not be forthcoming, having worked on the Neighbourhood Plan and knowing who has influence in the local area. He thought that we would be unlikely to get either the first or third conditions of the covenant lifted, unless our neighbour "has lost his marbles" (his words, not mine!). He also couldn't see why the charitable trust had a problem with the covenants as they stand, if they are being honest with the reason they have given (in writing) for wishing to purchase the house as accommodation for elderly or younger people. He suspects (as has been mentioned earlier by @lizzie) that the charitable trust isn't being wholly open about what they want to do with the property, and thinks that the reality may be that they wish to use it as a meeting house. What has convinced him of this is that there is parking for around 5 or 6 cars at the moment, and simply taking out a hedge, erecting a fence along the edge of the lane and removing the garage and attached car port would extend the parking area to accommodate perhaps as many as a dozen cars. I tend to agree with him, as until he mentioned how much parking space could be created I hadn't considered that it would make a pretty large car park.

My understanding is that the agent saw the balance in the numbered account and took that as proof that the funding was available. Certainly I have a copy of the bank account details that were going to be used to fund the purchase, but not the full name of the account holder, and I think that is the critical issue. One problem we've encountered before in this age of online banking is that some online bank statements can be printed off and all they give is the sort code and account number, not the name and address of the account holder. We ran into problems when getting proof of ID a couple of years with this and I had to go into the local branch and ask them to print and mail a proper statement (all our banking is now paperless). My first attempt at providing our conveyancer with the proof of ID/anti-money laundering for this sale failed as I sent them the ordinary online account statement print off, which was rejected as it didn't have our names or address on it. Luckily our bank must have realised the problems this can cause, as buried away on their web interface there is now an option to print a full "paper" statement.

Knowing my luck, though.... The organisation refer to themselves as a charitable trust, so that seems a reasonable way to describe them, if anyone asks.

Acceptable terminations inside a fitting are screw terminal blocks, wagos or insulated crimps (the latter wouldn't normally be used on a removable item). Acceptable terminations in a closed space would be insulated crimps (ideally with additional heat shrink sleeving of the correct colour), soldered joints insulated with heat shrink sleeving, or wago connectors, but not screw terminals. Any such terminations in a closed space also need to be in an acceptable housing - wago boxes are ideal for this sort of use usually.

Sounds a sensible approach, although I wasn't going to mention the previous buyer being a religious trust - you never know, we may get a prospective buyer who's a member of their congregation!

"wires loose with some insulation tape around them" sounds like a recipe for starting a fire too me. At this point I think I would be on the phone, getting a properly qualified electrician around to inspect and rectify things to an acceptable standard. DIY is fine up to a point, but there are very real dangers associated with not correctly terminating cables behind ceilings, in particular. Some "electrical" tape quickly tends to go sticky and come undone when it gets warm, leaving the very real possibility of an electrical short in the ceiling void. The regs are pretty tight on terminating cables in closed off locations like this, and the type of enclosure that should surround the terminations.

Already done! I'm asking the neighbour just out of completeness, but I'm near 100% certain he will say no - I would if asked such a question. No, the proof of funding is just a statement that the funds would come from a numbered bank account. I've just come off the phone to the agent and he admitted he'd never come across a religious group like this before. I passed on your observations about religious groups behaving like this (pretending that I had the information from a solicitor friend...) and he was unaware of it. He's worked as an estate agent locally for a few years before switching to Purple Bricks quite recently, but is still young; at a guess I'd say he's in his late 20's/early 30's. As you say, I think one key issue here is not working as part of a team who have a wide range of experience. He's now going back to the others who were in a position to make a formal offer to see if they are still interested, and arranging to get the "Sold subject to contract" sign taken down and replaced with a "For Sale" one. At least we can be reasonably open and honest with any other prospective buyers who ask why our sale fell through - I can see no problem in letting them know that the original purchasers wanted all covenants lifted, but expressing my view that I considered it was the restriction on the use of the property as a single private dwelling that was probably the concern, hinting that they may have wanted it as a place of worship, without saying as much!

To be fair the agent had no idea the purchaser was from a religious trust until I told him, as the initial viewing and purchase offer was made in the name of an individual. It was only after we'd accepted the offer and started the legal work that the fact that the purchaser was a trust became clear, as they had to declare it to our conveyancers, who relayed it back to me (but not the agent for some reason). I relayed it back to the agent that they were a religious body only yesterday, when the issue of the covenant came up, and it was clear he didn't know. Perhaps he should have been more diligent and checked them out before passing their offer to us, but my limited experience with estate agents is that few seem very proactive in terms of checking prospective buyers out beyond what the prospective buyer tells them outright via the information form they fill in (which may well be just an email nowadays). I doubt they would sell their searches, TBH, as from what I've been reading over the past 24 hours they almost actively avoid contact with anyone who's an outsider - for years they were known as the Exclusive Brethren, primarily because they avoid contact with those outside their congregation. They seem to be trying to allay some of the conspiracies that abound about them now, and even have a website, and to be fair we were good friends with one of them when we lived in Scotland and he was a nice chap, who just tended to keep himself to himself much of the time. I suspect they are generally good people, trying to just live their lives by what they believe with minimal contact with outsiders. Having said that, they run a pretty active rapid response aid operation, that provides assistance to people in natural disasters, etc.

Sounds possible that there were linked neutrals in the ceiling fan fitting, that are now separated.

Around here used Heras panels with feet and clamps have a pretty fixed second hand value of £15 per panel. There's a steady demand around here for second hand panels, as I had to buy a few extras and then when it came time to remove the fencing I had offers to buy it before I'd thought to advertise it for sale. Doubt they would fit. IIRC they are about 2m high by 3m long (maybe a bit longer) so even on the diagonal they are probably too big to get in a transit, and they'd be too long to be able to close the rear doors.

Things have changed yet again. It seems they won't reveal which condition is the cause of their concern, and want all three lifted, which frankly I doubt is even vaguely possible, so I'm near-certain the deal is off. The odd thing about all this is that the planning restrictions here would make it extremely difficult to make major changes to the house, given the location and the policies in the Neighbourhood Plan (change of use from a dwelling, for example, just wouldn't stand a chance of getting through planning). Financially it makes no sense at all to buy the house just for the small plot of land and rebuild a bigger house, as they they would be paying almost double the going rate for a plot here, and there are at least two other small plots available in the village that are in better locations for less money (but over-priced as plots, IMHO). Equally it makes no financial sense at all to convert the house to two storeys; I costed that up a while ago and concluded that the increase in value would never cover the cost of doing the work (at that time I didn't know about the covenant). All told a bit of a mystery, but it's clear that the covenant is the problem - they have agreed to buy at the offer price if all three conditions are lifted.

I think that may be where there is some confusion, though. It could be read either way, as it's written, I believe. The first condition and third condition clearly specifically relate to use of the land, but the second condition could, I think, be interpreted as referring to ownership of the land, as well as its use. I'm sure it probably hinges on that word "private" and how their solicitor has interpreted it.

Exactly, and I don't believe for one moment they would get it. In fact I'm near certain they wouldn't, and they would know this as they are a local charitable trust who know the area well. I believe the problem is one of ownership, in that the house would be owned by the charitable trust, and that may well conflict with the word "private" in the second condition. It may well be that it's a question of their solicitors legal interpretation of that wording that's the problem, here, too. I'm not in a position to judge this, but I believe the wording "single private dwelling house" may be interpreted as meaning the ownership has to be private, so excluding ownership by a charitable trust.

Not at all. We're talking about a Christian charity that very specifically only offers housing assistance to the elderly or younger members of their own Christian group, not outsiders. It's a nonsense to suggest that will affect property values any more than us selling it to a woman who both lived in the house and ran her own "escort service", something that covenant would not prevent. The condition could easily be worded to prevent it being used as a hostel, and the law currently allows that covenant condition to be over ruled and the house used as an HMO anyway - I could do it tomorrow, under the terms of the changes in the 1985 Housing Act.

Thanks @PeterW, I'd found much the same online with references to the 1985 Housing Act, Section 610. I'm sure that the second condition was either just a belt and braces addition to the first condition, or there to prevent the house being used as an HMO. The covenant was written before the 1985 Housing Act, which effectively nullifies it with regard to multiple occupancy, anyway. The snag is that enforcing the nullification of that second condition via the current law and the Land Tribunal would be a long drawn out process - one to two years, apparently.

Still waiting to hear the specific covenant condition that's the problem, but as their offer included the wording "As a small local trust that helps to support both young and old with housing requirements we see this as a fantastic property with great facilities", and as the charity is registered as providing the same housing requirements, I'm pretty sure it can only be the second condition. Their in-house surveyor who came and looked around wasn't interested at all in whether the loft could be converted or a second storey added, either, and made it clear that they intended to completely redecorate the interior and his main concern was that the structure and systems like the heating and hot water were in good working order. I completely understand the difference between a covenant and a planning condition - remember I mentioned above having to deal with the problems with buying our plot and getting three sets of deeds amended because of a covenant error, amongst other things? If you look at our blog you'll also see that I had to deal with boundaries being in the wrong place, such that the house originally approved couldn't have been built, as a part of the same deeds problem. I also had an interesting conflict with two mutually exclusive planning conditions to resolve. My point is that the second condition of the covenant specifically refers to the land only being used for a "single private dwelling house" and I can prove that I ran a CAA-approved aircraft workshop in my garage for a time from around 2003 to 2009, as I still have the CAA approval paperwork. It's no longer used for that purpose, and hasn't been since 2009, but I have operated a consultancy business from my home office since 2010. I know that wasn't a breach of planning conditions, as a home office for a sole trader is allowed within a dwelling without needing any change of use (I checked years ago). The approved aircraft workshop was probably a bit iffy, but that's in the past and I doubt that the council would try and come after me now about it, as the worst they could do at the first stage is tell me to stop, which I did in early 2009, when that work shifted to a nearby industrial unit.

We have the same mower. It's fine for a small lawn that's regularly maintained. It's Achilles heel is that it won't handle long grass. It has masses more battery life than we need for the small lawn at the new house, though, so if I let the grass get a bit long then there's plenty of battery capacity for three passes, starting off high then bringing it down a bit with each additional pass. The other really big advantage is that the thing is very light weight, so easily moved around and easy to get in and out of the shed.