MikeSharp01

If I was a social scientist I might challenge this statement but I would not want to waste space on this social network

OMG, Yep - off ....

I find it hard to agree with your points here. Industry has not become more efficient over recent years - productivity is way down and nowhere near where our main competitors are at. There is also little evidence that the sold off state monopolies have improved things although I agree that at the outset they did. If you look at the railways you can see the effect very clearly. It takes approximately the same time today to get to Bournemouth on the very latest train as it did in the 1930s steam era and there are fewer trains and permile travel cost in relative terms much higher. The railways were private then almost as they are now. The government do require more money that is just growth - the efficient service problem may arise from two possibly three sources. Firstly a lot of services have been privatised and so some of the cream has to go to shareholders this means that the privatised efficiency gain has to be more for less and some for the shareholders. Teresa May is correct capitalism is the best system we have but it won't do everything because not every thing has a profit in. This brings me to the second source. Where there is no profit available to a direct capitalist the state has to subsidise the cost of a service - back to the railways we are! As the profit motive drives this along again the cream is given to the shareholders and the service is just commercially acceptable but no more. In some instances where the service is not acceptable the goverenment can take the contract back. However as there are very few companies of similar ilk it goes to one of the others where the cycle repeats and so the service is worse, the cost to the taxpayer higher and the companies concerned just think of it as churn and hence the cost of doing business. We also know that privatise services delivered to the public can have very high costs such as the American health care system which is insurance based. It does more tests and keeps people in longer because the procedures equal profit. This also leads to inefficiency and, as was the case in the USA before Obama care, affordability issues for the poorest in society. Which brings me to point 3. The poorest in society need our care and attention because if neglected they will find a voice somewhere and destabilise our society quite apart from the fact that we need them to be productive in society and able to access their share, through toil and enterprise, of the spoils hence Obama care. Without it the growing under class of people with no health care insurance was damaging productivity through sickness and increasing unrest and despite the right making headway even they have so far shyed away from closing it down and going back to how it was before Obama care came in. Finally and not a further point but a more general one is about regulation. Capitalism only works effectively if it's excesses are curbed by effective regulations (laws) which enures it does not do perverse things in the name of profit - complex financial instruments cone to mind. Hence perhaps the need for an albeit modified LVT in the house building sector at least. QED - well almost.

With some simple rules it could perhaps be made to work. Here are my not exhaustive thoughts. If LVT only applied to larger plots in one ownership - say more than 1 acre. Large areas being farmed would be exempt but land used for agriculture that was later developed would attract high stamp duty / one off LVT payment to prevent developers buying land and then turning it into a farm. If you are a large developer you get a discount on the LVT you pay on undeveloped land you own based upon the number of homes you complete with social and afford able homes attracting a bigger discount. The LVT would, for large plots, be based on the amout of council tax couple occupied plots on a high density basis on the land would generate. On smaller plots it would only apply if there was no council tax being paid IE no inhabitants and no building was being undertaken. So people sitting on small vacant plots would have to pay it or council tax! Land given outline planning would attract an increased LVT until the development was given full planning and the normal rate until building was complete. An accounting law would also accompany the LVT to ensure that land bank values could not be written down or up to massage profits / dividends. Just some thoughts.

Great news but the professionals need to be rigorously encouraged to do the full job in exchange for the agreed fee. Hold some of the fee back or get them to do the proper job. Otherwise the next person will get a slightly worse service until some one down the line complains. It a classic case of keep reducing the quality of the service until it is just fractionally below acceptable then inch it up. That way you minimise effort and maximise profit albeit usually only in the short term because you will eventually get caught out by competitive companies who go the extra mile.

Yes we have a datum based upon a survey nail in a sunken brick with two fixed back sights all set by our surveyor I think we do know the AOD of the brick but it us not used anywhere and our PP gives the FFL of the ground floor as 500mm above the datum and everything is linked back to that as the architects 0 datum. Looks like Ian has sorted his issue out, thanks to ANON - this is exactly the sort of thing this place can faciliate so all praise to them, but I was not sure how his AOD heights link back to his planning permission or if some other datum, in the way ours does, defines the heights. Given the drawings it looks like it is the OS so all should be well.

Wood burners are not a problem here, in the verdant grassland around the Kentish M25 in between the M20 and the M26 the animals like it better than diesel smoke and noise! I chop down a tree every year, log it and let it season before stuffing it up the chimney using simple combustion, perhaps I should stop. I worry however that my contribution will make little difference as this article points out that possibly the worlds 15 largest ships create more sulphur pollution than ALL the worlds cars put together and although it was a thought experiment by Prof Corbett they looked at it on more or less yesterday and found it to be a good one.

Perhaps an alternative would be a thermostat on the incoming pipe which switched off the ASHP if the flow temp gets too high.

I was speculating as to the appropriate SI units for rate of tiling. My investigations have found two units - as opposed to the more normal case of just the one unified unit. Also more curiously in this case the only difference is in the scale of the time divisor. So (sorry bad grammar Jack) in the normal world the unit is m2/hr while in an anomalous corner of the south east (not far from here) the unit is m2/aeon. This gives us tremendous insight into the curious disturbances in the self build fabric which occasionally manifests itself in achingly slow progress but is yet perfectly aligned with an official measure of getting things done.

Me to! but if a standard OS datum I wonder how it was transfered to the site and why it is so prominent on the drawing. One might expect a single datum zero on the site tracked back to OS datum this way it just feels confusing and you need a vastly long tape to measure heights.

Do you not only get 30 days free so better hurry up and get those questions asked.

Sorry, just the drawing value, no sums done.

@recoveringacademic TOC is top of concrete and the value is the 27.255 height from your drawing. I assume the 27.255 dimension is to the bottom of the piles because if it is from some other survey datum point it may be worth verifying it so you can be sure everything is correct in relation to the datum if it is not the bottom of the piles.

Should read 30.255 and 30M is a long way down. They must be working from some fixed datum a long way away unless its the bottom of the piles, it was piled I think. The other thing to check is how the current unfinished floor on the ground actually compares to that TOC value if it was a planning condition.

Oh er! How did I manage that sorry @PeterStarck

I would worry that those screws should be securing things! Could they be like the screws left over when you have disassembled and then reassembled something. Although I am reminded of a story told by a 90 year old friend of mine. He used to sell cars to the Americans who were over here after WW2 and he would go to the factory and collect them. On his way to delivering them he would stop and lift all the carpets. Removed the dozens of nuts, bolts and washers left over from assembly that were rolling about in the floor pan and replace the carpets. The cars were quieter and pretty soon he had a world class selection of nuts and bolts.

The FFL needs to be checked with the architect as they may have the FFL as the top of floor finishes (wood / carpet/ tiles/ screed) or the top of the sub floor onto which the finishes go. If the former then you need to also add in the thickness of the floor finishes.

Yep that is what our energy assessor said. So 2Kw = 6 SAP points in our case.

As I undersrand it you get an as designed SAP which you need at the start of BC then for final sign off you get the as built.

0.5 I think.

Thanks chaps (assume Chaps) yes I suppose what I wanted to do was save cost if I reduce the PV I could stay above 100 but only, it looks like, if can squeeze down the MVHR as the fabric is pretty much at its limit already. Maybe I could improve air tightness a little, used the PH standard for the preliminary calc, I would expect to do better than that anyway but cannot find the equation linking air tightness and SAP points anywhere.

Our provisional BC SAP came through at 101 A (6Kw of PV or 107 with the full 8Kw) which makes me very happy. However the assessor told me I could have got two more points if I didn't have the MVHR because of the energy it uses. Can't live without MVHR so was wondering what the collective experience was with SAP and MVHR, can I get a better MVHR (Unit so far in the frame is: Airflow Adroit DV145) what, I wonder, is the conversion from energy use to points (Banded / Algebraic / ?) because I am not sure I will get a much lower figure.

Sad - depressing and distressing for you and the family. Have you any pics of the frames. Might help stimulate ideas.

Yes I have rusty hinges on my barn doors no wind will blow them shut.

Plaster is, as I understand it, a good air tight layer.