Square Feet

Many thanks for sending the files over John, I really appreciate it. It all looks very interesting - clearly a lot of thought and time has gone into it. I will have a bit more time to look at it properly later on and will get back to you then, Cheers.

I used Project North Geomatics for my topographic survey recently. I found them excellent so I thought I would put a recommendation up here. I've not been paid or incentivised to do this. They were the cheapest quote and the most professional - they were on site a couple of days after my initial request and got the files to me very quickly afterwards. I had sent them a spec but they just included some other things that I hadn't asked for but they thought I would probably need anyway. I've not had chance to properly test the data by actually using it yet, but Gus cast a professional eye over it and thought it seemed very good. The lads that came out seemed competent, hard working and friendly. They are based in Newcastle but didn't have a problem travelling 1.5 hours to my site. They say they operate UK wide. https://www.projectnorthgeomatics.co.uk/

Glyn Hudson on YouTube has some really good videos on DIY ASHP installs. Very technical and not flashy or clickbaitey. https://www.youtube.com/@GlynHudson

Great to meet you too Gus. My head is still buzzing with ideas. As others have said above - I don't think the problem is lack of imagination on the part of the would-be self builders. For most of us it's lack of understanding or knowledge that holds us back, which is why a forum like this is so valuable. I do also think that YouTube channels have a major part to play in taking the fear out of the unknown by demonstrating just how something can be done and how much it costs, but I get that we don't punt those too much in here as they can be commercial. We all used to be able to create shelter for ourselves and our families and would be able to do so again in a world with access to cheap land and no regs to worry about. Part of the problem in this country I think is the prevalence (particularly in England) of brick and mortar for building material - a method that involves trades straight away. Walter Segal pioneered a method of building that involved no wet trades whatsoever and in doing so inspired a generation of self builders - even if they didn't use his methods in the end. His method is woefully short of what is required for current insulation and air-tightness regs but still has merit in its core principles and vision of empowerment and enablement of ordinary people to build for themselves. A few years ago I built a workshop out of pallets. The only non-pallet parts were the rafters and roofing sheets. Standing back and looking at the finished building I realised that the entire load of the roof structure was being held up by a few nails in the pallets. This then started a conversation in my head regarding structural stability and so on and expanded into thinking about how a bigger structure could be constructed. It stayed up fine and the workshop stood for 14 years until it was demolished to make way for an extension. I'd say if you want to build a house - start by designing a shed and work upwards.

People, people. It's hola. 🙄 The H may be silent but you do need to write it down. Re solar and battery storage - check out The Battery Man on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@TheOfficialBatteryMan

Historically silver was used in water tanks as a anti-bacterial. It was very common to put a silver coin into the water butt to stop it going fusty. I have no idea how effective it was, but it was a widespread practice.

Nice one guys, thank you. Ooh I like the sound of that - I have a real deep-seated hatred of moths ever since one flew into my mouth while I was sleeping.

Fantastic thank you. Can you remember the make and model by any chance? Cheers

Sorry - misread your post. For any sort of financial advice it's usually best to start with Money Saving Expert. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/

Hi, I'm just at the stage of designing my house and I have mentally discounted Velux type windows as my experience with them in the past has been that the rain noise wakes me up and causes sleepless nights. However, I'm just wondering if new tech ie triple glazing etc has made this any better? From a quick Google I can see that in theory 3G and acoustic glass should make a difference but I wondered if anyone has some real-world experience of this?

Nice one thanks. I will message you. Cheers

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry I wasn't able to respond yesterday, cos I know it's annoying when someone asks a question and then disappears. I'm not sure if I know how to answer all of your questions but I will try. I live in a wee town in southern Scotland, so nobody here is a shower snob. It just needs to be there so that I can call it a 2 bathroom property when I sell. If there are flow issues with having both showers on at once then I think that would be for the new owner to find a work around - ie not using them both at once mebbe... That wouldn't be tested as part of the Home Report survey. It does need to work properly on its own merits though. The flat is a double-upper on an upside down layout so most of the bedrooms are downstairs, but I am creating a new bedroom upstairs, for which the second shower would be logical. I don't know a great deal about the hot water system as I didn't get it fitted. I've also only had combi systems in the past. I can do plumbing ie fit new things, adjust pipework etc, but the bigger picture here is a bit beyond my understanding, hence the question. There's a pressure vessel that needs topped up from time to time so I would say it's a pressurised system. The cold water tank sits directly above the hot water cylinder in an airing cupboard type arrangement. It's a substantial size ie 950l x 550w x 600h. The hot water tank is 1080mm tall by 480mm dia. It copes with two consecutive showers quite easily before the hot water is depleted. The shower downstairs is pretty much what you have linked to @Nickfromwales I think. I remember replacing it like-for-like a few years ago and it costing north of £200. Most of the pipework in the boiler cupboard is 22mm, with the exception of the pipes going to and from the expansion vessel. The pipes feeding the downstairs shower are 15mm. It takes its cold feed from the header tank, not the mains. I'm thinking that I will just need to pony up for another power shower like the linked one. It would be the easiest re electrics too now that I think it through. I don't think a mixer shower would work as I don't reckon there's enough pressure.

Hi all, I'm currently renovating a property that has a power shower downstairs with a hot water tank upstairs. I want to fit a second shower in an upstairs room next to the boiler/hot water tank. Does this need to be a power shower also? Is there anything I need to be aware of for fitting two power showers into a system? I'm just renovating the property to sell so I don't want the expense of doing away with the original power shower, hot water tank etc -I just want to fit a second shower as cheaply as possible so that the place can be sold as a two-bathroom property. Many thanks

@ProDave Do you find that you use the balcony much?

Thanks Alan, The surveyors came out today and seemed very thorough. I did ask them to record the cable level of the phone line that runs across both entrances so all good there.

He's definitely one of the good guys

No, it has to be full planning. Ecology insist on that for the plot mortgage. I'm not expecting it to be knocked back completely as the site qualifies as brownfield I believe, but I might have to compromise on what I want in order to get it through. We shall see.

Yes and no. It's in a small group of houses, (many self-built) on the edge of a village with a hall that hosts community gatherings. It's 6 miles from a small town (4k people) with a co-op, doctors and a few shops. It's 17 miles or half an hour from a much bigger town with 4 supermarkets, 3 builder's merchants and a Screwfix.

@Alan Ambrose thank you. So do I need the windows as well as the ridge and eaves for No 3?

I've now reached the happy place of 'offer and acceptance' for my subject-to-planning offer which in Scottish legal parlance means that we have a bargain and timescale agreed. I wanted 12 months to complete planning, the seller offered 3 and we compromised on 9. So I now have until April next year to get the planning I am happy with before I have to pay for the plot and take ownership of it. We've also agreed that if my application is stuck in the planning process through no fault of my own the timescale will be extended to reflect that. I'm not looking for any comments on this regarding legal safeguards just now thanks. This may be a little simplistic, but in my mind there are four possible steps to the planning process: Pre-application enquiry Planning permission in principle (same as outline planning in England). Full planning Building warrant I've opted to skip step 2 as I think I should be ok to move straight on to step 3 once I have a positive pre-application enquiry response. If you've any thoughts or advice on that then I would be interested to hear it. As you can hopefully see from the photo it is a gorgeous plot in a beautiful part of the world. The image above shows what will be the view from my future house. I feel very excited and lucky to have this opportunity.

Hi all, I am currently speaking to a couple of topographic surveyors and trying to come up with a spec for my topo survey. It will be used to plan the position of the house/garage/driveway etc and will also form part of the submission to planning for a full application. One has come back with some questions I can't answer so I wondered if anyone here can help me please? Is 2D or 3D output required? Manhole cover sizes and levels would be recorded as standard but are manhole invert levels required? Are neighbouring rooflines, eves and window sizes required? You mention measuring the public road 150m in either direction of the access points. If so, are you needing just the centre of road and verge lines or right up to the fence lines or walls? For No 3 I think rooflines and eves will be needed for planning but I don't know if I need window sizes (plot is in Scotland in case that changes anything).

A few years ago the Tories hollowed out trading standards and bunged Citizen's Advice a few quid to handle most of it for them. The people at CA are volunteers who do a lot of good work but they can't go to bat in the way that TS used to. The net result is a massive weakening of consumer protection in this country. Add to that the fact that most online platforms are based in the US and it's a complete free-for-all. I recently tried to report a listing on eBay for being fraud and an AI bot decided it was all fine and let the listing stay up. Nobody cares. FB and YouTube are happy for these ads to be on their platform as they are banking the cash. Meanwhile your granny falls for a scam like this one.

No 1. The rest look a bit 'communist bloc'

@AshleyFae "The issue is that it's some kind of old set up they're not allowed to provision anymore, so they'd have to upgrade a ton of stuff." They always seem to say that. It's just an excuse to get you to pay for the line to be upgraded, even if it doesn't really need it. I saw an episode of Grand Designs recently where they did that to someone who had knocked down their old place to rebuild on site. They still got hit with something like £75k for the leccy upgrade.

Good luck. That seems an awful lot for one person to get done in a single day, but I hope you get there.