Crofter

I need to replace the soffets, when I built the house I just used cheap ply to get the job done and three years down the line it's failing badly. I think uPVC is probably the best option as once fitted I'll never need to think about them again. I'll likely go with a smooth finish dark grey or black. Annoyingly, because I used 5mm ply last time, the support battens are all made for that thickness and it would be a massive, massive headache to change that (probably have to remove the gutters and fascias to get at the fixings. Yeah I wouldn't build it like that again). The board can be thicker in the middle but for about a 2" strip down either edge can't be any more than 5mm. I can't find any off-the-shelf product that is that thin, but I was wondering about modifying a hollow or foam-core soffet board. The hollow ones already seem to have one thin edge, but they seem to mostly come in a wood grain finish. What are the foam core ones like? If I stripped back one skin and the core, how thick is the remaining skin?

We have 100mm celotex and 150mm mineral wool in the warm roof. You can't really hear the rain on it, it's drowned out by the rain lashing the windows. (It doesn't always rain here... just when it does, you really know about it...)

Thanks to everyone who's replied. I knew something might be coming- I took part in the consultations from both Highland Council and the SG. It's quite an emotive issue, and around here there would be a significant number of people who would enthusiastically support a large reduction in the number of short term lets. This is entirely understandable as we have a big shortage of long term letting properties. Personally I think the answer is to increase supply of properties by allowing more sites to be developed, but plenty of people oppose that too. Our plans for this year are to rent out not only the cottage but also our own house whilst we spend some time travelling. I think it might be worth getting in early and applying for PP for change of use of our own house to allow short term letting. Hopefully that would then give us permission to either reside in it or to let it, best of both worlds. This is assuming that the new PP doesn't over-ride the existing residential PP. The downside of doing this straight away would be that I presume the fixed term of the letting PP would be running down from the moment it was granted. If that's a ten year term, then it's unlikely to matter, but if it's only say three years, it could run out before we get back home.

Our PP didn't specify any particular usage, I didn't think there was any benefit in doing so. It's possible I misunderstood what I was required to do, of course, although nobody has raised it with me in the five years since PP was granted. I believe that the new rules don't apply where you are only letting out a part of the property, so B&B should be unaffected. As you say the standard will cover the areas which you suggest. I've also seen reference to needing to have someone meet each new occupant to talk through safety features- that could be a massive headache for anybody who operates a holiday let remotely.

By the end of April the Scottish Government intends to bring in a mandatory registration system for short term holiday lets, with various requirements attached. Individual Local Authorities may also be able to restrict the number of short term lets in any particular area. It will be necessary to seek planning permission for a change of use from residential to short term letting. This has some pretty significant implications. My understanding was that if you get PP for a house, you can then choose to either live in it or rent it out short-term, with no PP change needed. From what I'm reading it sounds as though perhaps a change of use should have been sought all along? One very specific question I have is whether you can seek PP for the change of use, and then not immediately act on it. A bit like the way you have three years to break ground on a new house. Surely there has to be some period between gaining the permission, and actually moving out of the property to begin running it as a short term let. And what about houses which are dual use? Thanks for any insights

Thanks both, new circuit it is then! I thought so! I will probably get the fuse board itself swapped out at some point, although we are in the slightly complicated position where we have two CUs, being on a two-meter tarrif, and we may change over to a single meter, single CU system.

As part of a kitchen renovation we are changing over from a standalone cooker to a built in oven and hob. The existing wiring has a 30A fuse, 6mm2 wiring, and a single outlet for the cooker. The new hob is a Seimens induction, rated at 7.2kw which was more than I was expecting! I guess it would be best to use the old circuit for just the new oven, and run a new circuit for the hob? Happy enough to go down that route, there is space on the fuse board for another 30A circuit, but if there's a safe way of avoiding the extra work and cost then clearly that would get me up and running sooner.

I would always follow the stove manufacturer's instructions over those of a builder or stove fitter. I've seen an installation fail where a 6" flue was led in to a 9" clay lined chimney. Stoves can have quite cool flue gasses compared to open fires (which is why they're so much more efficient) so you can get condensation in the large 9" clay chimney flue, because it cools down on its way up. Problem was apparent when brown stains started appearing through the brickwork on the outside of the chimney. Problem solved by fitting 6" flexi steel flue liner and insulating between that and the clay. That was for a house where the stove was used daily for six months of the year. If it's only being used occasionally, you'd probably be fine going straight in to clay, at least for several years.

It's all there in the Caravan Act, and in local interpretations of it (e.g. Highland Council planning note 018, from memory). You could make it from brick if you wanted, but it would have to be on a massive steel chassis. Literally the only stipulations are: - max length 18m - max width 6m - max ceiling height 3.048m - movable in one or two sections Interestingly, the building can still qualify even if there is in practise no way of moving it. The test case for this was where somebody's portable building had been, over the years, encroached upon by other building work to the point where you could now no longer get a crane in and remove it from the site. In that case it was ruled that the characteristic of portability was inherent to the building rather than being a combination of the building and its surroundings, so just because other factors prevented access did not mean that the building lost its claim to be portable. And of course you could hire a Chinook if you really wanted to make the point...

I applied for PP for a "one bedroom dwelling". My choice of wording. I did not say anything to the planners about construction method. In their response, they said they had assumed, from the size and style, that the build would be some sort of pre-fab, but they acknowledged that this had not been specified- it was just a throwaway remark from them rather than any sort of conditon. I also contacted my local BCO to confirm that what I was doing would be exempt from BRegs. The access/bellmouth and the sewerage system still had to comply with regs. I deliberately did not want to be pinned down to any particular restrictions, so I didn't say anything about it being a holiday let (in case my plans changed in future).

I didn't know Jacinda Ardern was a dictator? It's not true to say that the UK has done just as badly as other Western countries. I've not kept abreast of the figures as much in recent months but certainly at the start we were doing appalling badly, despite being late to the party and having the benefit of watching what the Italians were going through. We are in that select group of nations whose leader has contracted the virus. You might put it down to bad luck, but I think there's also an element of truth in saying that if someone can't even keep themself safe, what chance is there of them keeping their country safe?

My wee cottage was built to this sort of spec, as a portable building within the definition of the Caravan Act. The whole attraction of going down this route is that you are not constrained by building regs and can design and build it just the way you want, so long as it satisfies the planners. I did a fair bit of first-principles calculations on things like wind loading and how that impacted on the foundation system. I also used the JJI joist spacing online tool to spec the floor joists. But other than that, it was pretty much a case of 'if it looks right, it is right'. If you want to put a meaningful amount of insulation in, then your timbers are always going to end up being pretty massive. I never really made my mind up about the roof structure, for example, and it ended up being a heavy ridge beam with cut rafters, some of which were then braced to become trusses. I think that's a sort of hybrid of three different ways of building a roof, but what the heck it is still standing and doesn't so much as creak when a gale of wind is blowing outside (which is more than can be said for most 'professionally built' houses I've lived in). I used Sketchup (free 3D drawing software) to work out the minutiae of the little details, like floor to wall junctions. Well worth spending a few hours getting your head around the software as it was very useful for me. This build route does have some downsides. The most obvious one is that, as non-standard construction with no completion certificate, you won't be able to mortgage it. That has a massive effect on future resale value. Secondly, in a more technical vein, the building cannot be built up from conventional foundations. It must be possible to lift it off the site in no more than two pieces, so if you have to leave the floor behind that's not going to comply. In my case I chose to keep it as a single monolithic box, meaning that my floor joists had to do the whole width of the building in a single unsupported span. If I had a sleeper wall at the mid-point, my joists could have been a fraction of the size, and I would have had a less bouncy floor. I could have split the building down the middle, which would have traded an easier floor for a much more complex roof. I'm not sure what the best course of action is for you with building on peaty ground. As your build will likely end up being quite light, it would be tempting to simply sit it on the ground, as you say on skids- but perhaps it would sink over time? I think a trial hole to see if there is any solid ground underneath would be worthwhile. I hand dug eight holes and then poured concrete pillars and sat the building on top of those, but I had good ground conditions and it wasn't any harder than digging a hole for a strainer post. The holes also didn't fill instantly with water as yours probably would!

We will see the benefits of Brexit on the fishing industry quite soon. Every fishing boat now has to register with their LA Environmental Health as a food production business, something neither the fishermen nor the council are well equipped to deal with. Every shipment of live shellfish will have to be inspected by a vet (there is one such vet to cover the whole of Highland region). Nobody knows exactly what procedures and paperwork are going to be needed and there is a feeling that the first few lorry loads of live exports are going to sit and die in a layby somewhere because of a missing piece of paper. A lot of smaller fishermen are going to sit tight and hope to ride out the storm, not selling anything to export, whilst they wait for the kinks to be ironed out. And then there's the effects of the tariffs- these vary depending on species and level of processing, but are at least 5%, and up to around 20% for certain products. How many businesses can swallow that kind of cost without damage?

Well yes there's a bit of a difference between storing enough energy for a day, and enough for a winter! Maybe a bit more wind power would be a better idea than trying to get through a whole year on PV alone...?

As I understand it there is no elemental lithium involved, just ions. So in that respect you could worry just as much about the seawater itself.

LiFePO4 does seem to be getting tantalisingly cheap now. I need to install a large battery bank in my boat, the conventional route would be 4x225Ah 6v FLA, which would cost £600+. The actual useable capacity (50-85% SOC) would be about £3.80/Ah. If you buy from the likes of AliExpress/Alibaba, you can now get 4x280Ah lithium cells for about £340 delivered. Assuming 80% useable capacity, that's just £1.50/Ah. Of course it's all the associated parts of the system that make the cost mount up. And it's a real steep learning curve trying to work out where to place the smart parts of the system. but I do wonder if a lot of the perceived wisdom about lithium systems derives from the days when the cells were hideously expensive, and it made sense to invest in shiny blue boxes to keep them safe.With the actual cells becoming so cheap, I wonder if we can afford to take a different approach these days.

We ended up abandoning the beamed system, couldn't get it to work. Hurriedly put down a long extension lead and used a Powerline adapter, this worked perfectly so we just left it in place. This summer, after more than two years, the system became unreliable and we had to replace the adapter. Probably due to water ingress. Now looking at installing a phone line to get a reliable, independent system.

In the interests of keeping to budget... I'm going to go with just laminate and underlay, but I can knock off any high spots on the floorboards first with the belt sander, and make sure everything's screwed down tight. Then lay the laminate at right angles to the floorboards, and choose something with nice wide boards. The floorboards aren't really all that bad for cupping, and I think doing it this way will prevent any chance of uneven ridges showing through to the finished surface.

We currently have bare floorboard as our kitchen floor. Sounds lovely, but they're softwood from the 1970s, 19mm T&G. Very draughty (suspended floor), prone to damage and ingrained dirt, and full of badly cut hatches made by previous owner. It needs to go! Original plan was to lay hardboard, to hide the gaps between the planks, and then vinyl on top. Hoped this would be cheap and cheerful. But I'm starting to wonder if hardboard under a kitchen floor is a bad idea, and anyway the stuff isn't actually all that cheap. Finished cost would be something like £19/m2 including fitting and wastage (got an old chimney breast to work round). I could upgrade from hardboard to ply, but that's a significant extra cost, taking me up to something like £26/m2. Or I could rip out all the existing T&G boards and lay P5... it's hardly any more expensive than hardboard... and reuse the old boards flooring my loft. Would solve all the problems with old hatches etc, lets me do a really thorough job of insulating under the floor, cost comes to £21/m2 but holy crap that sounds like a lot of work, especially where the existing flooring flies under partition walls. Probably a non starter for that reason alone. At these sorts of prices, vinyl no longer looks like the cheap and easy option. I did the cottage with bamboo at £20/m2 plus adhesive, although that was four years ago and prices will obviously have risen. So maybe I should be looking into laminate or bamboo, perhaps uni-click to avoid the need for adhesive... in which case I think I need underlay? And how are these finishes likely to fair when laid on slightly cupped old floorboards? Just curious to know what other people would do in this situation.

Just to update, we got fed up and plumped for DIY in the end. They had the fastest lead time and the greatest choice of unit sizes. We're paying £250 in delivery but despite that they're coming in a little under the rest, and I won't have to build the units.

The DIY Cento is a very strong contender at this point. One of the big attractions with DIY is that they do a much wider range of unit sizes than IKEA.

On worktops again... Ikea's 'solid wood' ones are actually only a 3mm layer on the top, a bit like engineered flooring I suppose. How do these hold up in practice? I'd imagine your only get a couple of goes at sanding out damage, and it's conceivable that a deep cut could go right through. I know laminates have an even thinner top layer but it's tougher, and they're less than half the price.

Oh I see! I didn't realise the partitions were already in place. Yes, I guess you'd better get your wallet out and buy some rolls of tape. It ain't cheap ??

I would just continue the VCL around the whole exterior wall, and put the partition walls on top of that. My partitions met up with a stud in the TF so I just screwed through in to that. There's plenty of space in the top and bottom rails of the partition to fire in as many fixings as you want, anyway.

Apologies if this hijacks the thread... I'm about to swap out a plain vanilla vented direct cylinder for its unvented cousin. I'd assumed that I could just plumb it in as-was. But reading through this thread, I realise that it's not as simple as that! Current setup is 22mm from stopcock at kitchen sink, heading off to the bathroom. The first tee is a 15mm to the kitchen (sink, dw, outside tap), the next tee is a 15mm to the existing cylinder, and then the bathroom is at the end. If I need to give the tank priority, that means a big loop up there straight after the stopcock, and then back down again. Or put the tank somewhere else. Not a deal-breaker, just something to think about. Glad I spotted this! I'm planning on getting a plumber to do the essential hookup of the UVC itself but wanted to do all the prep myself, so I'm sure he would have picked me up on this.