Jeremy Harris

I agree with @Declan52, but suspect these may well be Bradstone Cotswold buffs, as they look near-identical to those we used for a lot our landscaping work, like this well: The mortar colour depends on the colour of the local sand to some extent; around here we can get a very bright yellow/orange sand that when used with white cement, rather than the standard grey cement, gives a cream colour to the mortar. When used with normal cement the mortar ends up grey, as in the photo above. I have no idea how you've got pink "mortar" but have to say that I agree with @Construction Channel that it looks suspiciously like plaster to me, especially as it's not well pointed and is failing.

Guess what? My complaint seemed to work. I've no idea at all what they did; they didn't do any work to the cabling close to the house, that's for sure, but we're now getting a fairly solid 24 Mb/s, rather than the 4 to 5 Mb/s we used to get. I can now upload at around 10 Mb/s too, which is a heck of a difference when posting photos.

I know the area vaguely, having stayed on an airstrip nearby years ago, and I have a feeling that the only house that is really impacted by this development is @recoveringacademic s, as it's a fairly sparse linear development along that lane, with his new build pretty much at the extreme limit of development (which may well be why PP was refused for the plot in question).

From what's been posted before I think the issue is that the plot was refused PP for a dwelling, but the owners may be living there, with the foundations down for a "stable block", which it seems is very likely to be a dwelling in disguise in due course. I think there's probably enough evidence to suggest that the landowners are intent on living there, by hook or by crook, without going through the planning system. Given the extreme hassle that @recoveringacademic had in gaining planning consent, and all the ludicrous hoops he had to jump through to get it, I can fully understand the frustration at seeing a neighbour just flout the law and seem to be getting away with it. I'd feel much the same in that position. The problem is really one of getting the law applied equally in the same area, together with the apparent unwillingness of the local authority to enforce its own decisions.

I've tried to use one or two of these online "find a trades person" sites but have formed the view that the really good, experienced, people don't need to use them, as they get more than enough work from word of mouth recommendations, there seem to be a lot of pretty dodgy people registered with them, luckily most of these may well show their true colours when you first meet them, and there are a few new trades people, who use these services in order to get established. The latter group can be great, if you can make sure you specify the job very well and give a bit of oversight. We recently used a young chap who was just starting out and found he was a hard worker, careful, clean and tidy and keen to earn a good reputation. He was also good value, as by his own recognition he admitted that his rates were a bit lower than average because he knew he was still learning on the job, so was taking a bit longer to make sure he did a good job. We're as pleased as punch with his work, especially as he popped in earlier this week, three months or so after finishing the job, just to check we were still happy with his work. I doubt he'll be using the online service for long, as I'd guess that he's already building up a pretty good reputation.

I'm not sure it would help, as it would only give protection to a relatively small area, because of the relatively poor, and variable, conductivity of soil. I've had excellent results using Galvafroid, which seems almost as good as proper hot-dip galvanising. Macsalvors used to stock it at a good price, but only in 5 litre tins I think, often past the "use by" date, hence the low price. It still worked fine years later.

Pretty much. To understand how chemistry works getting your head around the idea of valency is a great help. Unfortunately, the classical way of illustrating "rings" of electrons around a nucleus tends to muck up things a bit, IMHO, as the reality is that the orbiting electron cloud isn't as neat and tidy as that, and when you chuck in the inherent uncertainty as to where any subatomic particle actually is (something we cannot know) things get even harder to get your head around. The Wiki entry on valence is reasonably clear, but assumes a bit of understanding about atomic structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valence_(chemistry)

There are several things that are almost certainly influencing the planning departments reluctance to get involved. Planning officers aren't paid well - when I made an FoI request for details of their salaries a few years ago (in connection with the justification for charging £90 for a half hour 'phone call) they sent me a spreadsheet, and the head of planning for Salisbury District Council was paid just over £28k. I'm not sure how much hassle I'd accept for £28k, to be honest. Next there is the general staff shortages that are impacting all councils, as a consequence of the tight squeeze on council revenue. This seems to have resulted in a reluctance to do anything that might cost money. Finally, planning officers, in particular, are very used to complainants, and have learned over the years that they can make the majority go away by just not doing anything, so reducing their workload a bit. @PeterWs advice is probably the best course, as once their legal people are involved, and if they take the risk of litigation seriously, then things do seem to happen. Our council tax hassle is a good example. As soon as I spoke to their legal chap and outlined the law regarding a rateable heriditament the council backed off very quickly, and didn't give me any more hassle.

From what I can gather, building inspectors seem pretty laid back about drainage tests. That was certainly my experience, and seemed to be that of our ground works chap, who couldn't see why I'd bothered to specify the drain test as a specific item. I got the feeling that a fair bit of the time they don't even come out to check drain tests now, and I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that modern plastic drain pipe systems are pretty foolproof. I think the whole concept of the drain pressure test goes back to the days when short lengths of clay pipe with lots of joints were the norm, as they can very easily leak if they aren't laid properly.

Many decades for the bit well below ground, as there won't be much free oxygen available. The area that would need the most protection is the junction between the above ground and below ground bit, up to around a foot or so down, as that is the bit that will have the double whammy of being exposed to oxygen and water. If the paint on the container is reasonably sound then bitumen or tar works very well; it's what's used on steel narrow boat hulls traditionally. If the paint surface isn't that sound then it wouldn't hurt to sand or blast it to get rid of any loose stuff then coat it with a zinc-rich primer before painting it with bitumen.

We had a tree chap that did just this, and we used the chap he suggested, who did a very good job, so it seems that some do. However, I've asked this morning during my fruitless ringing around session and none that I managed to talk to would suggest anyone else, though.

Should be the county court, usually the one closest to the area, but it doesn't have to be. I once brought a claim in another county, simply because their court had an online small claims track system. Part of the challenge is going to be finding out which court heard the case. You can access court lists, but often they aren't that easy to search. Every case should be listed, which would at least give you the date and court where it was due to be heard. Court lists always used to be sent out to the local press, but I'm not sure if they still are. They should be available at the court, though. With luck you may be able to do a search for all hearings involving Wyre Borough and then sift through those to see if you can work out what each case is (unfortunately the lists only usually give the names of the two or more parties involved, the court, the name of the judge and the date).

Oxygen normally exists as molecular oxygen, O2, rather than as atomic oxygen, O, in the atmosphere, or as a compressed gas. Atomic oxygen isn't stable, and wants to bond to practically anything, including itself, whereas molecular oxygen is generally pretty stable, so dioxygen is quite happy to just stay around. Trioxygen, O3 or ozone, is highly reactive and will give up one oxygen atom to oxidise lots of stuff. The reason that ozone is so reactive has to do with it wanting to rid itself of the extra oxygen atom as quickly as possible, and the affinity the released single oxygen atom has for lots of other atoms.

You should be able access all court judgements, but the chances are that many county court judgements may well not be available online, so you will probably have to enquire directly from the court. You have the right to access all judgements from any open court hearing, but they may levy a small charge for paper copies of them, and you don't have the right to see any evidence that was presented, other than reports than may have been made of it by court reporters. Often, several media outlets, especially local papers, will share one court reporter, to keep down costs, so you may be able to find out who has attended any particular case and ask them if they can let you know what evidence was presented (I suspect they'll want paying for it!). There are a few potential gotchas, in that unless there has been a judgement, there may well not be a publicly accessible record. Often civil cases are settled out of court, commonly at the last minute, and as a general rule these settlements will not be publicly available, so not only will you not know the decision but you won't be able to get hold of any reports on evidence presented, as it won't have been given in open court. The same goes for any case resolved via mediation, rather than an open court hearing.

Our test was done with a plug in the far end and the pipe filled with water. BCO was happy when he came around mid-morning and the level of water in the chamber at the top of the run hadn't dropped. Our ground works chap said that he always did tests this way, as air testing was too much hassle. I have a feeling that the O rings on the fittings probably seal a bit better when the pipe's filled with water.

There are loads of Mitsubishi air con units around, which are pretty much identical internally to an ASHP (strictly speaking they are the same thing) so I suspect that maintenance and repair for the Ecodan, should it ever need it, may well be easier than finding someone with experience of working with NIBE kit. NIBE kit is well made, though, so should be as reliable I'd have thought. As above the heating requirement seems very high for a well-insulated and sealed house. Our place is 130m² and needs an absolute maximum in very cold weather of around 1.5 kW for space heating and it's very rare for it to need more than a few hundred Watts. I'd have thought that a place that's around 1.7 times the size shouldn't really need more than around 2.5 to 5 kW for space heating, most probably a lot less most of the time. Hot water is the challenge, and is where most of the heat energy will be needed in practice, I suspect.

I had no idea they had come down so much in price. I detest cutting the grass, even though it's only a small area, so one of these looks ideal. Years ago I had a go at making one, which wasn't intelligent, it just used a microcontroller to make pre-programmed turns if it either detected the very low frequency RF from the boundary wire, or if one of the bump switches detected an obstacle. I used a small motor driving a blade that had two Stanley knife blades fitted to it as the mower part, and it only had enough cutting power to gently trim the tallest blades of grass. Mine was solar powered, and programmed to turn on and start ambling about the lawn as soon as there was more than a set battery charge current coming from the solar panel on the top, and shut down when the battery voltage dropped to a critical level, and not start again until the battery voltage was at the fully charged level. It worked OK, and never really left any noticeable grass cuttings behind, but the lawn at the house we lived in then (this was around 1998) was too big, and the mower was just too slow. It was OK during long spells of dry weather, but just couldn't cope with the spurt of growth from the lawn after a few days of rain. What I did learn was that the "little and often" approach works exceptionally well at both keeping the grass looking good and controlling weeds. The near-constant topping off of weed shoots seemed to be a very good way of killing them off and letting the grass dominate.

I've just hit the same problem today - I've spent most of this morning trying to get hold of a contractor to resurface our old drive (no luck at all so far - all booked up) and a fencing contractor to put up a better fence along the top of our retaining wall. For the latter job I'm using the chap that's done all our landscaping work, but he's booked up for months ahead. I've resorted to emailing people for quotes, as many just aren't answering their 'phones, and I'm betting that I won't get many, if any, replies. It's damned annoying, as I've been too busy to get things organised for the past couple of months, and now I have the time to start getting things done it seems everyone is just too busy.

That's really great news, I bet it's a heck of a relief to have the build finished and earning money. Somehow I found that the motivation to do the little jobs that were outstanding started to get enjoyable once the pressure was off; my problem over the last couple of months has been a lack of time to do much.

I have the same ones as Nick suggested in our kitchen/dining room, a mix of 3 W and 6 W units, with those at the kitchen end being cool white and those at the dining end being warm white. The warm white ones are slightly less bright, but are pretty close to incandescent light in terms of colour. The cool white ones are close to the colour of daylight fluorescent tubes, but with a more diffuse light. The light fittings themselves seem much of a muchness wherever you buy them, but one batch I bought had very electrically noisy AC DC constant current drivers. These drivers had no screening and no form of interference suppression at all, and caused a great deal of noise on any radio when they were turned on, so were clearly non-compliant with the EMC Directive, despite being CE marked. Other drivers have been fine, with no noise at all, but it seems complete pot luck as to what you will get. I even had a noisy driver supplied by a reputable LED lighting company for some of our lights, but they were very good at sending me replacements, so good that I suspect I wasn't the first to complain about them.

I think there's no real merit in using SIPs, even MgO clad ones, as you're paying a lot extra for structural strength and certification that isn't needed, as the portal frame is bearing the loads. If you are OK with the wall thickness build up, then you could just clad the steel portal frame with insulation and then use a cement board outer skin, which could be rendered, clad or have brick slips fitted. I'm not convinced it would be cost effective though, as others have tried to bring the advantages of a steel frame to domestic scale buildings without much success. There was a chap on Grand Designs who ran a steel fabrication company who opted to build a modular steel prefabricated house, which looked like a good idea in principle, but it was clear that his design had thermal bridging through the steel and AFAIK the idea never really took off. I think that, in part, that may have been because modular, fast assembly, timber frame panel houses are cheaper and just as quick to erect on site, and most of any possible cost saving came from the speed of on site assembly. Labour is far and away the biggest variable cost in a build, and is a cost that is impacted by our weather, very much so for the early stages, before the house is up and watertight. Anything that speeds up the foundation and house erection to the watertight stage is potentially good, as long as it doesn't introduce compromises. With a steel portal frame there would be a lot of details to get right, including how to stop the foundations for the steel frame becoming big thermal bridges to the ground beneath. Putting the steel frame outside the insulated envelope would get around that problem, but then you add another problem, which is how to stop the structural penetrations that come through the shell to the steel frame becoming thermal bridges, which would also require some careful detailing. All in I think it would be getting the details right that would be the challenge, and could well absorb a lot of design time to get right, plus, I suspect, more than a little aggravation from everyone from building control, through contractors working on the build to insurance and warranty companies over the non-standard construction.

With SIPs you don't need any structural frame - the first "S" stands for "Structural". The main issue with SIPs, is getting the wall/foundation interface details right - it's critical in terms of eliminating the thermal bridge and reducing the interstitial condensation risk in the sole plate. There are details around that sort this out, though.

Thermal bridging may be an issue, as all the insulation would have to go outside the structure and would inevitably increase the overall wall and roof thickness. The thickness could be kept down by using a high performance insulation, but then the decrement delay would be short, which may well lead to comfort problems in terms of maintaining a stable internal temperature. Lots of potential labour time and cost savings to be made by using a prefabricated steel portal frame, though, but whether they would be greater than the time and cost savings from a prefabricated timber frame I'm not so sure.

You can also get plug-in range extenders, like those made by Edimax, for a simple to set up way to extend WiFi coverage. I've not tried them, but my neighbour has one and reckons it works OK: http://www.edimax.co.uk/edimax/merchandise/merchandise_detail/data/edimax/uk/wi-fi_range_extenders_n600_dual-band/ew-7238rpd/ IIRC, they retail for around £25, and seem to be easy enough to set up and use from what I've heard.

In essence, yes. Ideally the stone wall should have been built with a mortar course 150mm up from the finished roof height, as that makes the job easier. Cutting a straight slot through a mix of mortar joints and stone will be harder, depends on the stone. I had to cut a flashing slot in a Cornish granite rubble stone wall years ago, which wasn't a lot of fun, but that's probably at the extreme end, sandstones are often a lot easier to cut. Dressing the lead flashing down over an uneven wall shouldn't be a problem.