kandgmitchell

By their nature regulations tend to be reactive. Take the Summerland fire and more lately Grenfell. In earlier days it was more about disease prevention covering drainage etc. Part of the issue now is how the control of development is fragmented across several regulators, be that the planners, building control, environmental health and now the building safety regulator. I have no issue in having rules for structural stability, weather/damp resistance, fire protection etc but begin to balk at being told to fit an EV charger or the right amount of internet to an individual house build. Developers perhaps, because they are selling a product to a third party for profit. Myself, I don't need the planners telling me what plants I have to landscape the garden with etc

Quite!

Well I raised potential cooling with the service engineer who came today. Mines a Vaillant and whilst it apparently can do it he didn't recommend it as the "underfloor pipes can contract and crack the concrete". I wasn't going for the sub-zero approach, merely say 16 degrees.......

Well Scotland is certainly a foreign country. The English regs state that water use must not exceed 125 litres/person/day with a lower limit (as we have) of 115 litres if required by the planning permission. Never seen a minimum requirement but then few locations around here are without mains water.

The pump came with the house package so there was no discussion with the installer prior. The didn't know me from Adam. The house functions well but with energy costs so high you have to wonder if the set up is performing at it's most efficient. Seeing other examples of energy usage for comparable homes does help to put it into context.

Trouble is the installer does presumably do this but then leaves the system set as they feel is appropriate. A short briefing on the the operation, the manuals (mostly installation rather than operation)handed over then off they go. Two years down the line how does one assess whether that set up matches your lifestyle. Finding accessible information that is understandable to tweek the system is hard. Many posters on here have got a very detailed knowledge of the operational side of these units whereas some of us are loathe to fiddle too much; especially just before the heating season........ My last full year was 5210Kwh for all in power (no gas) in a 178m2 house with two people and the occasional guests. The next hi-tech addition I'm working on is clearing more plot for a washing line to reduce tumble dryer use!

I think this just makes my point.......................

This is what I find frustrating about heat pump installations and probably so do many other people considering them - you need a degree in physics to understand their control for the best performance ........

Those flippin horses can be mighty nosey........

But only if you were in the woodland or paddock. Not sure an extra couple of feet of glazing below an approved cill level is that material but agreed it does vary from the approved plans. This is exactly what I was trying to say - different people perceive risk differently. I'd run with this because a) the chances of someone seeing it are low, b) if they did, were they aware of the approved design in the planning application and c) should the planners find out are they going to have a meltdown and threaten enforcement?

I tend to use the assessment: would the planners have approved this if I had proposed this in the first place? In this instance I cannot imagine that if you had suggested the smaller windows they would have said "oh no they must be larger" and we won't approve the scheme until they are..." So, the chances of this change from a planning perspective not being acceptable are vanishingly small. Personally (and everyone's acceptance of risk is different) I'd press on and just ignore the change. However, to formalise this submit a VoC application to cover yourself but not stop building (they could take months to deal with the application). But and it's a big BUT - check the means of escape situation as mentioned above because that is a significant risk to the final approval of the scheme by BC.

Quite! One way is to have a drive around a likely location, you often get private signs put up with a phone number. Usually on the urban/countryside edge. Units on farms? Ask on a local facebook page? You need to get creative to find this sort of space, local commercial agents just don't handle it.

We fitted Amtico floating LVT in the extended kitchen at our last house. The extension featured large bi-folds looking south across the hills, lovely view... However, the first summer it all buckled between the island and the bi-folds. I chased Amtico and they said the product wasn't suitable for conservatories, having pointed out that this was the ground floor of a two storey extension, they changed to . ..... we wouldn't recommend it in that location due to the heat. Eventually they sent a technical guy down to help the kitchen fitter and between them they glued it down in that area.

Or use the exemption in Part 7 .... CLASS 7 Extensions The extension of a building by the addition at ground level of— (a)a conservatory, porch, covered yard or covered way; or (b)a carport open on at least two sides; where the floor area of that extension does not exceed 30m2

Generally storing a chattel on land that is movable does not require planning permission ( this is a basic response 'cos planning is a complex subject - national parks, AONB etc) so you could argue that your boat is a personal possession will be movable in due course, is not permanent and thus should not be liable to PP. It all comes down to the attitude of the LPA and how much fuss neighbouring owners make. On a piece of industrial land there are likely to be fewer complaints and thus little LPA interest compared to doing this on the verge in a Cotswold village. In the latter situation the LPA can be very creative in order to pacify the public and so the aggravation factor is going to be larger. Stick to somewhere where you will blend in more. My biggest concern is whether you have been instructed to build this boat and collect animals two by two in the anticipation of .................