MikeSharp01

Don't worry 5G will be along shortly.

Mirrors are just glass so you need glass drill bits like These (which I gave used on many occasions) just don't have the hammer action turned on! For bigger holes there are these which come in a variety of sizes they need a guide to hold them in place (I have a set I got from Lidl which work fine on tiles have not tried them on glass.) and they are usually run wet.

If I never see another TV ad for smart meters it will be too soon and I will save a heap of energy and turn my TV off because I don't understand what the advantage of having one is for the householder given that most people don't track or care about their energy usage anyway.

Nope - you are just following up the conversation you had with the PO and formalising the new material - most planners are quite used to people doing things a bit out of sequence, your neighbour is already on their radar as a bit of a problem and they want things sorted so putting in retrospective PP (minor change) is the line of least resistance for everybody.

Nothing to stop you applying for a retrospective change of materials, this may be a minor change - seems like the PO is already happy, so it won't go our for neighbour consultation. You always have the right of appeal anyway. We are using tiles on our build so I hope I can find someone to fix them down for me! (Next door had some done a year or so back, although not jet black, and I have the name of the chap who did it!)

Worth fighting for then.

Ah - you may be in a conservation area or some such where such things can be mandated. Competition law may not apply here as the condition was part of your planning permission and you went ahead anyway, and in doing so accepting the use of the stated material. Naturally that does not preclude you going for a change of material in the normal way of things. However - given how much you have in the bank, what is the cost difference anyway to good natured rich folk like yourselves

Don't forget to max out your premium bond limit.

Welcome to THE forum from the other end of the union - Kent

Snubbed we was

Surely Jeremy you will get an invite - as the chief test pilot and all that, if you are not careful people will be calling their pets after you - we, my brother and I, called a goldfish we won at a fair in 1970 'Trubshaw' after the UK test pilot Brian Trubshaw who first flew UK Concorde very topical then - all forgotten now.

Yes not knowing what it is you don't know, Donald Rumsfeld was a genius in making this a topic for discussion , is a risk for us all and perhaps might be a summary of this whole topic. You can do it all yourself but watch out for what it is you don't know you don't know!

I may have a perspective on this one. We were (still are hopefully) going for a passive house so we needed to close a lot of the loops before we went planning as the permission might have been granted for a house that could not be a passive house. Things like window sizes and orientation had to be tested against the PHPP (passive house planning package) to ensure that we got a working design through planning and would not need to go back for alterations. As it stands we may need to go back to planning as I am contemplating increasing the roof area to be covered in PV from 8Kw to 12Kw (Won' be 12Kw peak as some are east and some west facing) and that will require a planning alteration. Interestingly such modifications do come a bit more costly if you use an architect - not for the design work its only replacing some tiles with PV cells but because we used one for the PP every change costs more.

Makes perfect sense - she is now 11, so in 7 years she will head off to university to do a 7 year architecture programme - complete with the matching section and then she will be ready to give you a hand - does 14 years feel like your kind of timeframe?

Yes our neighbors did that and got a great home, highly insulated, lovely to live in I suspect but there were compromises they had to make. I suspect that compromise is what its all about in the end. We gave our architect a brief and then free rein until they started coming up with options then we started helping them close in on one we were happy with, features came and went - critical features stayed and in the end we arrived at with the design we have. Interestingly although we started with this as a house for us and our old age (a long way off I hope - but scrabbling around this morning doing some plumbing does make me wonder) we did hold in our minds the idea that if our children needed to sell it how would prospective buyers see it but we didn't let it control much - its for us to live in an entertain in nobody else - if you want it when we are gone, or can no longer live there, then you take it as it is.

Hmmm - not sure where to start with this one - so lets just say I am not sure this view is wholly accurate and may mislead people dangerously. I feel it very much depends on what and where you are building but primarily why you are building and your background. Coupled to this the concept of 'expense' is just a world view thing and has little interplay with the cost / value equation you will need to deploy across the whole build. If building for oneself then getting it right for you probably moves the cost / value equation about quite a bit in terms of professional support as would building in a sensitive location / conservation area / green belt etc. There are some aspects of professional support it is very hard to avoid. Structural engineer (I am not one so have no axe to grind here) for a start although a set of plans may contain all the calculations the building control people will need to be convinced that they are relevant today and that any alterations as might be required to meet current building regs have been reworked by a competent person and at the very least the roof structure will need a set of stability calcs. The architect question is also tied up here, and they are a costly aspect but the value balance in the equation is critical. I can only speak from personal experience as in the three build cases I have been involved with we have always used one to ensure that in getting what we wanted, not what we thought of, and we swept out all the corners of the possibilities by relying on their professional experience and challenging them to match our expectations. In the first two cases we did and we are happy with the result. In the third case we won't know until we get the building finished but I suspect that its going to be good - I can build it well I think but designing it is a whole other ball game - speak to @caliwag he will have a view I am sure. There are of course some lucky clever people who can design and build a house without any professional support at the design end (SE accepted) but you can never know just what a difference that professional front end work would have made - engineering optimisation is after all not aesthetic optimisation and a home / house is a machine for living in but there are a lot of aspects to living.

There are a load of books of house plans you can look at the design is there but not the detail - they all tend to be a bit 'house' like so if you want something a bit edgy you may need to look further. If its details you want, such as might be needed for building control, then I doubt there are many plan sets out there at that level.

Depends on how much insulating you want to do. If you have a solid base to work off and the BI is happy to have them below the DPC then you may get away with it BUT it looks complicated in that you have to fill those blocks, surface the tops of them then fit the dpc and find a way of connecting the upper and lower blocks to the DPC - the tie in to the steels looks complex also. On the whole a timber frame with blown in insulation might be your best bet as @Mr Punter says.

OK so perhaps not the best idea then!

Yep looks v smart - self builder bible is great but for an unconventional build, as this appears, helical screws and all, there must be other books out there. I got the latest versions of the building regs from the web (all free) and those coupled to the costings bible (spons - defo not free) should be enough to keep you amused through the next few stages of the process. If its going to be a passive house then there are several great books out there EG this one.

Thanks @Nickfromwales

I made a set of plastic plates on a cnc machine with banks of close fit holes for each group then sealed this plate to the DPC and then ran a bead of polyurethane adhesive around each pipe to make a perfect seal. The Bi was happy.

Very sad day. We still have Ecowin on our list of possible suppliers and I have spoken to Thomas many times getting the details of the quote correct, he was very pleasant, patient and professional.

I didn't ask for cutting as I am not sure they can cut them accurately enough and most of them have angles on the end. However when the job goes in for quotes it will include a cuts spec so they can price it provided that can meet the tolerances.

Yes - sensible approach but I don't yet know how many of each standard size need so at least my algorithm will tell me that approximately I worry that just dividing the total length needed by the standard length will result in more wastage as I will have to order extra to be sure to be sure!