lizzie

I agree with @Mr Punter lots to mess up. We had 3 companies out before choosing the one we used.

They did exactly that to us for the same reasons. We went back afterwards with an NMA to change to single ply membrane lead colour, got ok from neighbour too. We showed we could deal with run off water without overloading the drainage system, luckily we had a field and a ditch behind us to take the run off.

This web has manuals and tech links for all makes you can crib from here I’m sure https://manuals.easygates.co.uk/

this is the you tube on how to open my gates (these are not my gates!)

We have the same situation as @Bitpipe a nut at the base of each gate which you undo with the key spanners provided. I think most swing gates have this, sliders have a slightly different variation but they have an emergency release too. If you go to a gate company website and look at motors you will probably find the tech docs showing this and you could use those for BCO.

@newhome exactly! @joe90 if the testers had not temporarily taped up my gaps I would have had a poor result I’m sure. They were tasked with achieving a result on the day and so they did all that temporary taping to get there. That was exactly my point last week. Its such a shame after all your hard work. Maybe the paperwork will reveal an anomaly as suggested above.

Our planning was for a green roof....planners love them it ticks all sorts of green policy boxes, we went with it to get through but went back afterwards with an nma to change it. I have never seen a green roof that looks half decent after a few years. Its not a wild flower meadow on the roof. You don't use soil and seeds its a special sort of ‘mat’ often a type of sedum. They can look really ugly and brown and shrivelled in hot weather. Things dropped by birds do seed up there too, they are not maintenance free. You need a different type of construction for a green roof it needs planning in and is not cheap to do......as you can tell I am not a fan!

I'm going to start monitoring my usage as suggested. I guess usage up to recently may be skewed by the MVHR and UFH not functioning properly.

Looks great, a nice clean job!

I changed to bulb some months ago. I pay a dd of 96 a month (set by them) they now tell me I owe them nearly 300 as the 96 is not enough. They want to put me up to 150 a month. I send them meter readings every month. That seems a lot of money for one not very large house built to good u values and airtightness. I was paying approx that at the old draughty rental....that was with B gas. Are bulb now an expensive supplier?

Hi Sam and welcome to the forum.....great bunch on here so helpful and knowledgeable. I used a lighting consultant on current build, good £’s spent made such a difference.

Personally I hate range cookers (grew up with an aga) but it should be the choice of the person who is going to be using the equipment not what fashion dictates.

I have wall switches as well as an app.....belt and braces!

Can you use one of the smoke detector tester cans they make smoke....or maybe its not enough smoke. Otherwise there is always the faulty hairdryer method as used (accidentally) by me last year.....that makes a lot of smoke!

Good tip!!! The lawns may survive but sadly the heritage of the buildings most of us are spending so much time and money lovingly constructing will in the main be one great blob of polystyrene in the ground. The Time Team of it's day in 100 years or so will look at it in amazement that we could have used so much environmentally unfriendly stuff......the 21st century equivalent of Saxon post holes on timber framed buildings just not as kind to the planet.

It was one of things I looked into with our automated lighting. I didnt want a system that was defunct in a couple of years. So far the one we have is working ok but I dont want to jinx it so just saying so far..... We went for one that is part of Phillips as they are probably the biggest and oldest and most likely to eat the competitors like Loxone over time. Its a guessing game with all of it though. We have a heatmiser system for our heating control...that can be via nest too, its enough of a pain just on heatmiser never mind nest. We ended up with two of the bedroom light switches behind the doors as we changed doors over but forgot to tell electrician. We still have the switches behind the doors but with blanking plates on, we have those wireless switches in the correct positions so we can put light on as we go in. I have kept cover plates for wired switches in case we ever have to change back.

Buy one and store it on my lawn?

Cant you just get the intumescent strips that go round the frame to seal it, they may be enough to qualify, we did this in an office and building officer was Ok with it.

ooops @Moira Niedzwiecka sorry I forgot will have a look over the weekend.

Thank you @ragg987 good stuff. I would be interested to see how peoples views are a year on. There does seem to be some limit to their usefulness, my friend who had one in last year has not bothered to set it up again this season and so their grass is now very long....they are not gardeners and really need to take the lawn up or get the astro turf! I am now past the point of cost justification which was one of reasons last year. Now I am struggling to keep on top of it, I so don't want a man in every week the whole ethos of this house was empowerment for me to be able to do most things without help. I had a very large garden before and went from planting and maintaining acres of woodlands and putting in new water gardens on the banks of the stream as well as regular gardening to having to have a man in to help me every week as I just couldn't manage it alone any more. I hated having to have help and want to avoid it here it is my little garden I want to do it, doing things myself is very important to me these days but sadly I have to accept my limitations. The bit about the edges doesn't sound great...2 or 3 times a year would not be enough for my patch. They need doing at least once a fortnight or month if pushed and strimming not an option for most of it, I took off chunks of render on the planters with the battery strimmer so back to the edging shears. I need a mowing edge around the lawn side of the planters really but that ruins my vision of how I wanted it to be. Sometimes visions have to be revised for practical reasons!

reviving this topic......in the event I decide to stay with ‘real’ grass (and make the decision between returf or try and rescue what is there) then the next thing to cover is mowing. I bought a bosch battery mower last year...cost about £350 but is very good rotary mower with stripes just like the old petrol beast used to do. All good but even with lighter weight mower I am finding it hard to manage so onto robots..... those of you that have had them for a while any useful insights and/or recommendations? Do they cover lumpyish ground or must it be billiard table smooth and level...I have a bit of a slope one side. What about edges? I hate doing edges more than mowing but do like neat edges! Are they woofer friendly?

They look lovely however having had this in a previous house I swore never again as maintenance is a pain and these days I am all for an easy life hence porcelain. Enjoy them, lovely fossils.

I agree ....you will need to find someone prepared to do them and pay whatever they want. Those very large tiles are not popular with tilers.

Stripes on dog friendly artificial grass I wonder.......

Wow thats an eye opener on the dog turf thank you! I was contemplating opening up a new robot mower thread too! Might well do that tomorrow.