MikeSharp01

No drainage is in other trenches.

We used a 300 wide trench and all our services are in duct. I did bury the water on the left, then back filled with 100mm soil and then laid the other three on the other side of the trench gas, comms, electric (left to right). The separation thing feels a bit daft as at each end they all get brought together in the building.

You have almost all the guidance you need on the heating system above, just the Sunamp or similar (not much) option to look at, but the Architect is another matter. We provacated a lot about our long list of architects. We wanted a passive house standard of build - loads of insulation, 3G Windows, very good air tightness etc. The problem we had was that all the PH experianced architects seemed to be designibg with a limited pallet and we wanted a modest home that makes a statement. l felt I could handle the energy calcs, I went on a PHPP training course, and that allowed us to engage an architect who had not done a PH before but who was prepared to let me be the PH consultant as it were. We are nowhere near finished but I am confident we have a great standout design that will meet the PH standard.

Can you cut it or cut out a portion, use a joiner as the bracket or fit a clip and use two joiners to put the cut out bit back (might not look perfect but might get the job done)? Also you might find self adhesive gutter liner a help.

I have had some success with mole grips. You squeeze tight on the head and twist them out. I have a small pair for just such jobs.

Probably not but I thought it might be fun to see if there are any other bonkers building pics out there. This house has been up for sale for a long time perhaps because it has a built in power / telegraph pole, which I suppose is not suitable for dancing.

Simple terms anything frpm £1700 - £3000 per square meter.

Call your local installer and get them to tell you where they would need you to put the wires (siting of the sensors is the critical art) and tell you the wire spec, and then install the cables and either fit the sensors, control unit, bell boxes etc yourself or have them do it. Of course if you have wireless then no wiring needed other than between the control unit and the bell boxes. (We have three bell boxes at millstone manor which wink and so no matter what direction you approach it is obvious we have an alarm.) At your place I would have one facing each way down the lane and one out the back.

This is onr of those probkems you can either go through - find a way to locate your remote or go around and stop watching TV or get a butler like the rest of us.

'Their' maybe. Agree that realistic budgeting helps. Someone here, at millstone manor - not me, thinks that Architects should take a course in costing their ideas as part of their charter, the course can be simple as 'think of a number and double it twice', an old friend, who when he retired had spent over £300m on buildings in his career, tells me architects don't do money. You have a guide though - just work on £3K per m2 and the chances are that 80% of the time you will come in under budget!

I suppose if you choose to live in Wales, cos you like it there or for whatever reason, you might expect things done in Welsh! I am not sure I could live in Wales, nothing against it - love the singing, but I worry it would drive me up the wall and it appears that the ability to climb walls is required if your stairs are anything to go by

Divorce into the bargain...

Gob smacking £3m cost and nowhere near complete.

Sad news - were you in the cottage?

We are using both and glue. I glue and screw the timber to the sheathing and the sole plate to locate it and the go round with the nail gun. The gun is a god send and wont cost you as much as you think because you can sell it once you are finished and it will be cheaper tham screws as they are 3 or 4 times as expensive than nails application for application.

Yes - BT seem to be getting back on the Ball. Yesterday I spotted two chaps in the lane staring at poles and arguing about where the underground runs were between them. I was able to point out that the grey looking duct running from one of the poles on our land was in fact just a bit of old down pipe I dropped there in the summer and had now become somewhat over grown, 'Oh that explains it' one of them said. When I asked what they were about they said they were doing the survey for the Fiber runs they will be fitting shortly - whoopee, we have about 13Mbps (13316) as I look at the meter but fibre should make a big diff. We are inside the M25 but are classed as a rural community.

Yep this link sort of explains - well the PDF does. https://www.promat.co.uk/en/products/promaseal-expansion-joint

How thick is the i strip and is it encased in plastic. They expand a good deal. Iirc the size of the gap and the width of the seal are controlled by the fire rating. The smaller you get the gap the longer the rating for a given width broadly, a few mm should not be a problem.

Yep interesting link - as you imply money for old rope.

Anything to stop you topping up the collecting tank from the main would cut out the dual pipework? You could break the direct connection by having a valve that dumps mains water into the gutter although that might fall foul, pardon the pun, of a hose pipe ban.

Yep, must have several 1000 about the house, do you remember these? Probably got a few of these about the place as well.... (Pic source: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/media.html )

I know this but the standard rack is also very deep, although I agree you can get them with less depth, as they want to accomodate all the gubins behind and in front if the devices and then add a door. I have several shoe stands that are more than wide and deep enough for the job.

Don't go 19" rack it is far to big this switch has 26 ports, includes PoE, and is only 8" deep so with 4" of cable room out front you need no more than 1' depth. If you are up for it you could terminate all your cat5/6 cables to a plug and then do away with the patch panel as well but that is relatively tedious. However before you go putting loads of CAT6 everywhere you might like to wonder how it is that 200 students can be happily watching youtube in the refectory (never happens in lectures you understand) in a world without wires using the amazing eduroam!

Once set up a 5m length should take around 60 seconds through a table saw. Around 80mm per second through the saw. At 600mm verticle centers that length is more than 2 m2 of wall.

I wonder how many of them get issued a year? Bet most people don't even realise there are conditions on their home especially if they are a few owners down the line from the planning permission.