MikeSharp01

Thinking like Mr Bean I would go to a local battlefield and find a cannon ball that is just a running fit in the undamaged end. Then arrange a device to fire the ball down the pipe this will then force the dent out in one pass and you might like to point the pipe at some unwanted items and sort them out at the same time.

Several points. 1. You need to fence the site. 2. Put up a standard warning sign. 3. Setup a portaloo or make alternative arrangements local to the site. 4. First aid kit. 5. Get site insurance 6. Get enough hard hats / safety shoes and hi viz vests for your team and insist contractors comply- the standard warning sign refers.

We used micro screw piles to strengthen existing walls for our extension they have worked brilliantly for the last 17 years the new walls, which are brick / block needed 3m deep foundations! So I would look hard at screw pilling.

Sorry I was not clear - you will need to update your planning I just meant that they won't refuse if the reasons are structural and the overall envelope is the same in the end. I do reiterate the VAT issue. It if is a rework then VAT is payable unless you stay within the rules of how much can remain, which isn't much!

Welcome to THE forum for self builders. Looks like an amazing project. Building on top can be more of a problem than knocking down. If the foundation's are no good nobody will stop you creating proper ones and its easier to claim the VAT back if you start from scratch although you can keep a proportion of the old build and still claim the VAT but this needs care.

Great news you are almost 'off grid' but I suppose we should also look at the capital cost for a comparison with on grid. I think you have talked about payback times before.

Is that imported or a mix of home grown and imported KWh?

PS you can of course pay to have them re-routed.

Sadly IIRC you have no rights unless the poles are on your land or there is danger from the cable. The statutory undertakers can hang wires where they like as long as there is no danger from them. If the poles are on your land you are in a very strong position as you can revoke the wayleaves or use the wayleave as a negotiating point but I guess you don't have time for that.

Generally building control should deal with this. They will either tell you what to remove and then how deep your foundation's will need to be or just tell you how deep they need to be based on the trees. We have an oak about 10m from the house which is protected- the bc man came to site and worked with the ground worker asking them to keep digging down until he saw no more roots in the walls of the trench. We then had to fill 25m of 3m deep trench with concrete but we have had no problems in 15 years.

Got an update on this one. Set my local expert the task of looking into the matter and, it seems that there may be no equity release / lifetime mortgage companies prepared to deal with non traditional construction out there. Although not exhaustive it seems that the risk appetites of these companies is so low that they won't touch them.

A recirculation system is a massive waste of energy in a home when you will only draw HW a few times a day. For the rest of the day you will be keeping the pipes warm, and associated spaces, for no reason. In a hotel such systems work well as HW is in constant demand and pipe runs are long so delays getting to HW are not acceptable but in houses these runs can be short. I suppose you could mitigate the waste issue by just running the system at high demand periods, as in early morning / bed time or whenever else you bathe.

Oooo er- what is the diameter of the trunk and how tall (long now) is it?

Not quite the case as a brise soleil works by cutting higher summer suns and does not so much interfere with low winter suns.

They usually supply and connect the meter and an isolator switch and your electrician can then connect to the other side of the isolator. If they don't have an isolator switch, I would be surprise if they didn't, you can get them at most electrical wholesalers and the like but you want them to fit it. Just check that the white box has a wooden back plate in it and let the power company do their thing.

It is a salutary read - sadly put out of lots of peoples reach by the price £80 ish, but a great borrow!

Even more if you have a shower one supposes.

Yep - I saw that but was not brave enough to mention it, but I now have my tin hat by my side - just in case.

I did a week long course on all three in 1981 (at South Thames College as was and I guess you can imagine where we went each evening, given that Young's brewery was 25 yards away!) I thought the MiG was most versatile and TiG the hardest to get remotely right but I still have my aluminium TiG project from the course. So although I enjoyed the TiG I would say MiG is a great starting place. I have done very little welding since.

According to herindoors probability of any sort of intimacy and warm body radiation theory you stand no chance with a pasty in your pants and you must not neglect the latency corollary that clearly defines the quarantine period, according to the inverse inverse cube law of time since any sort of pasty in the pants. There is considerable research, sadly now rather old, start HERE, that examines the nature of containment for pasty products - including what will happen to your collar, the screw extruder required, the need for a flat bottom and the probable effects on the container design. Along with the challenges to ones relationships the laws of physics also apply the the pasty phase, but, one guesses, that is a whole nother conversation. (Sorry Peter)

You are right to be concerned. Where is the hole in relation to the joist run, in the middle of the run or at one or other end? What sits on that joist, looks like a wall (hopefully a stud wall - which will be light and have a bottom stringer that can spread the load)? If its a brick wall then the load on the center of the joist is a triangle of the bricks and would need some calcs to work out what it is. Also does the joist sit on top of a wall below as this may make things a lot better. There are rules for notching a putting holes in joists. This is quite easy to follow: https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/Notching_joist.htm

That was a great watch.

Yes - but we need to recall that the Clapham omnibus is now mainly packed with middle call Millennials traveling into work from their £500K Pied a Terres in Tooting and Balham up to the big smoke - their views might be interesting. (I mean that - interesting)

Auto opening for roof lights (Velux / Fakro / Etc) has been a thing for a long time and is very useful for creating passive stack ventilation automatic or otherwise but both need some air inlets lower down the building to let the air in and this is where more traditional windows and auto opening could be a great idea but the example above looks like a sub optimal design to me, aesthetically at least, solution and would leave security issues.

I am sure that most of the core lenders will support mortgages, most- although not by all means all, are quite happy with timber construction, but specialist equity release lenders are a different bunch as they have a different set of risk appetites. I suspect that the age / newness of the build might be a factor (newer houses easier). There must be someone out there who will do it but it will take finger work to find them and the rates might not be the best.