kandgmitchell

Well this is what s55 sub para (2)of the Town and Country Planning Act says with respect to what constitutes development: 2)The following operations or uses of land shall not be taken for the purposes of this Act to involve development of the land— (a)the carrying out for the maintenance, improvement or other alteration of any building of works which— (i)affect only the interior of the building, or (ii)do not materially affect the external appearance of the building, and are not works for making good war damage or works begun after 5th December 1968 for the alteration of a building by providing additional space in it underground; It would seem bizarre that you could be made to build the house exactly as per the approved plans and then having done so, entirely change the internal layout without needing permission. Now that would be one approach perhaps - build the house and then use the £100K saved to change it all again! I would suggest that internal layout is therefore not on the planners' highest list of priorities and I can't see how such changes during construction would constitute a material alteration. However, materially change the external appearance of what has been approved is another matter and you don't seem to make it clear whether you need to do this to achieve your internal changes.....

Not sure about 0.5m, Anglian Water specify 3.0m as do Thames Water and most if not all other WC's. If you measure that as a radius then you should include works within 3.0m of where the lateral drain becomes public , i.e at the boundary crossing point. However, as I say, your neighbour is potentially impacting only their own services and I can't see a problem developing to such a point where you may be impacted without things already becoming extremely unpleasant for them.........

I'm not sure this will be the case. Drains normally block at junctions, bends or manholes unless there is a pipe dislodgement which is rare. A blockage anywhere from your common manhole up the lateral drain and into their property would result in them suffering the result. Hopefully they would have an outside gully which overflows. Worst case is there is no gully and the first they are aware of a problem is when the kitchen sink backs up. If that sink is connected to a soil pipe then they really have a problem because that's quite a head of effluent sitting above a very full manhole...... All that effluent is shut inside their part of the drainage system and it will not impact you. If the blockage is within the common manhole or below, then that is a joint problem and yes being lower you will detect the issue first. The WC are responsible for dealing with that and you should call them asap. In that scenario both you and your neighbour are contributing to the contents of the drain and this could have happened whether or not they built an extension.

Just to clarify it's Part H of the Approved Documents which cover drainage in England and Wales - G covers hot and cold water, sanitary facilities etc. Internal manholes are not uncommon - most large commercial buildings will have them. Building over a private inspection chamber is also not uncommon and this is covered by Para 2.54 which requires internal manholes to have screwed down airtight covers. Presumably this is what your neighbour will have below the trap door access. Building control will no doubt check this. I'm not saying it's a nice thing to have but that's their problem. All this is being done on a private drain for which the Water Company have no responsibility. When that drain crosses onto your property then they do have a responsibility to maintain it as a lateral drain until it reaches your manhole where it become public from there. Where this enters a grey area is "building over" includes "building within 3.0m of". Now if that extension is more than 3.0m from where the pipe crosses the boundary then clearly they are not affecting the lateral drain at all and what they do under the extension is purely between them and building control. However, if the extension is within the 3.0m then technically it may need a build over agreement. It will depend very much on which WC it is - some are more relaxed than others. In any case though it is probably unlikely that they will object to an enclosed manhole on the private part particularly if the only affected party is the one that's done the work and it doesn't directly impact the structure of the pipe they maintain. The best place to check is your WC website and look under "developers". Their policy towards build overs is to be found there.

So from what tree does "Decwood" come from? The most elaborate at a sensible price, that's easy to get is going to be the tall ovolo type stuff held by most builder's merchants. At least you can easily get extra when you're two feet short of it in the last room.

Well it's patently an inspection cover installed to give access to whatever is under it. That could be a drain, soakaway or secret nuclear bunker.............. Lift it to find out......

But both Building Control Guidance notes 1 and 16 clearly say that only permanent restrictors are acceptable as ways of preventing falling, and in respect of windows used as escape routes BCA Note 16 says: Window restrictors. Window restrictors are not considered to be an alternative to a permanent guard in any of the diagrams in this guide. Reference should be made to BCA Guidance Note 1 - Glass guarding and restrictors to low level windows above ground floor level in dwellings and then BCA Note 1 says: Openable low level glazing as Escape windows. Where low level windows are also designed as escape windows, “permanent” restrictors would not be suitable as they would prevent the window opening wide enough to allow escape. Low level windows fitted with restrictors that can be easily released, would be acceptable but only where suitable guarding is also provided. To be suitable for means of escape, the top of the guarding should be between 800mm and 1100mm above the floor level and the minimum dimension (450mm) and area of the opening (0. 3m2 ) should be measured from the top of the guarding up to the top of the opening. (My emphasis). If your BC provider decides to follow this guidance (which echo's Part K) in order to avoid risk, then so be it. Departing from such technical guidance would be at the discretion of the person signing off the work, some may allow releasable restrictors only but there would be many that wouldn't.

Like this stuff: https://decoramouldings.com/product-category/egg-dart/ Must say never seen it as a skirting but who knows...............

So new joists have been added to beef up the original joist which acts as a trimmer for the new opening. Probably not critical that the new joist bears onto the brickwork as it's shear forces at the bearing that becomes important and it always surprises me how joists turn out to be very capable when you think they shouldn't. However, it's simply good practice to have all the members properly packed up off the loadbearing walls so get some shims into those gaps. What is not clear is how the new and existing trimmer joists are joined along their length - there appears to be a gap between them. If they are going to share the loading imposed by the trimming joists, then they need to be properly connected. I'd be bolting those together with spiked disc washers between so they acted as a single unit, simply bunging a few screws or nails in at random is just not enough. And echo comments above, this is a very risky cold roof arrangement.

Something like this? https://mdfskirtingworld.co.uk/vienna-mdf-skirting-board/

Assuming BC have signed this off the options are: 1) Leave things as they are and deal with any problems when and if they arise, 2) Leave things as they are but add the IC to at least make some of what's been done roddable and then deal with any problems when and if they arise, 3) Rip it all out and do it properly. If BC haven't signed this off: 1) Let sleeping dogs lie and apply the above options, 2) Arrange for the final inspection and await BC's reaction and deal with their requirements. I can't see many other alternatives

I'd run it past BC first but I can't see why it wouldn't work. The purpose of the rocks/hardcore is to fill the hole so the surface doesn't fall in but leave voids for the rainwater to be held whilst soaking into the sub-strata. If you have another material that can perform both those functions then where's the problem? The one issue may be how strong the filled ground would be, but down the side of a field does it matter? Getting a handle of the void volume in such a scenario may be an issue but be a bit conservative and propose it to BC.

Well the new IC will certainly help to gain access but you can't rod the side branches from there. This is presumably Scotland so the administrative regs are different from here in England. Has all the work been signed off by BC?

Obviously not a self build but an appeal to BH for material ideas... I need to build a double throne for a local theatre pantomine. The seats are back to back and have a large back panel separating them - the idea is that The Beast sits in one and when rotated, the Prince is magically revealed. The seating and rotating plinth are not an issue - it's the separating board. The initial thoughts was to cut a chipboard panel to create a sort of sun-burst pattern but as a flat panel it's not really fairytale enough so I thought why not have the individual "rays" curving in over the throne alternately, painted up in purple and silver with a bit of netting it would look more impressive. Now the rub, I need to find a way of creating those curves within the thickness of the separating board, obviously chip board or mdf will not bend so any ideas... oh yes you have!

Given the location of the drain run which seems to be between the retaining wall and the house, I can't see a BCO having any issue with limited concrete cover. You could haunch it up if need be but that may look a bit ugly.

My error as well, I thought it was the extension that was 5m from the tree. If I was was building a non-bldg reg outbuilding that close to a tree I'd be looking to do it in the simplest manner possible, as unless you do some serious foundation work the tree will have an impact. So I'd go for a lightweight flexible structure on a simple base. Building a rigid masonry box that close to a big tree is asking for future issues

Horse chestnut 5m away.... I'd design for piles from day one as I don't think digging to China is far enough from Pinner

If this is for a pre-application approach to the LPA why do you need a Design and Access Statement? There wouldn't be any "statutory consultation process" because what you are asking for is an officer's opinion on your proposal - it's not a formal planning application. If you are considering outline planning then you don't need elevations and floorplans. Outline is just that - is the principle of two bungalows in this location acceptable. Detailed design would come later because you would "reserve" that matter until after outline approval was given. As for liason with the case officer - well good luck with that! There are some on here that have had good experiences of pre-app's; getting decent feedback and a good steer as to the LPA's reaction to a formal application. There have also been examples (and I've had some myself) of pointless pre-app's where you get no real insight and because it's a single officer's opinion the LPA goes it's own sweet way upon formal application. I'd get another quote elsewhere for both doing a pre-app for you and a formal outline planning application, so you can compare whether to ask nicely upfront, wait for ages and then have to apply formally, or simply just get on with it and give it a go. If you are successful then you have the choice of selling on the land with outline approval or going on with more detailed design. However, I'd not bother with the latter unless you intend to build out as any buyer is likely to change the design to suit themselves anyway.

Mine certainly was - I had to search hard to find the larger duct for their three phase cable as only a few places kept it in stock

As mentioned above you are obliged to build to the approved drawings. Do they specifically set out dimensions for the build and to what degree of accuracy? 18.8m could be anything up to 18.85m really, so arguably you could be only 25mm over Quite honestly I'd be very surprised if the planners got upset by a variation of 0.04% in a dimension caused by cladding thickness; they've got bigger fish to fry.

I remember when the PP first arrived. No more printing seven sets of drawings and copying forms in triplicate. In those days I had a proper office photocopier with an automatic sorter attachment as well as a huge A1 copier and a plan printer. It was one of the kids jobs after school to walk the post down to the village post office in the form of large packets addressed to local authorities. Then along came the PP which was free to use and you could load everything up digitally and send it off through the web. Great! Over the next few years the large office machines went ( two guys bought them to send to Africa I think) along with most of the filing cabinets. All shrunk to a computer, a screen and a box of floppy discs and even they went to be replaced with a solid state external drive. The PP then went private ( now doubt to improve customer experience - it always is the excuse) and started to charge, I think £25 at first, then gradually it has crept up and up to the point where it's better to send an application direct now that all LA's have adopted the digital world.

I'm not trying to add to your woes but take yourself on line to the Planning Portal and look up Approved Document C and go to page 30 and look at Diagram 9(b), does your arrangement look like that? A tray should have a significant slope outwards to prevent water reaching the inner leaf. It should definately have weepholes otherwise water can't drain away.

So it's a tray dpc then where the inner leaf level is higher than the outer leaf level so as to direct any water ingress to the cavity out to the external leaf (and thence via weepholes). It's just that in the photo the dpc looks flat across the cavity rather than sloping as per the drawn detail - although even that doesn't have the 150mm min drop from the inner leaf dpc to the tray as per Approved Document C diagram 9(b).

Is that a dpc laid flat across the cavity?

My site is in North East Lincs whereas my case officer lived and worked in Devon. No site visit, she relied on photo's of the site taken by a local officer.