Bitpipe

It's called character. Your lovely new build accumulates a lot of it over time and it's all distressing initially but then fades into the background. @craig Our lockdown puppy had a good chew on the bottom of one of our sliders - luckily I still have a can of the original paint so that's a fill, sand and paint job at some point...

We had that experience - a trade was using grinders to trim steel bolts on the frame and a few of the hot sparks hit the inside of a few windows - luckily I intervened early enough to prevent any damage (there are a few microscopic marks) but could have been much worse.

We had about 60m of cable between the kiosk with meter and van, also had earth rod. We reused the feed for the garage when build was complete. LPG heating / cooking in a static generates a lot of condensation which settles on the floor (and other surfaces) at night in winter and leaves you with a cold, damp interior the next morning. We switched to using a dehumidifier to reduce the humidity and it generates quite a bit of heat itself so we didn't need to use the fire in the living area. It made caravan life a lot more comfortable. We kept with LPG for cooking and hot water. Electric blankets and rads in the bedrooms also. TBH, summer was more uncomfortable as once the interior got hot it was hard to dissipate the heat.

I bought three direct from MEA in Germany, using currency fair to do the FX transfer. I got the biggest ones they did - 2000mm x 600 I think. Install was easy but I did it to a cast concrete wall, however you could adapt to ICF - in fact, may even be easier in some ways. The wells come with a 200mm deep XPS perimeter (ours in two halves) which is glued to the concrete wall using supplied adhesive. The internal aperture should exactly match the window hole in your basement wall. In this perimeter are holes to take coach bolts to secure the GRP lightwell. Now for me, fixing the perimeter was a bit tricky as the adhesive took a while to go off and it was heavy and wanted to slide down so I had a lot of props and braces to hold them in position. For ICF, I would offer the perimeter up, mark around it and then chop out the ICF insulation until you get back to solid concrete. You can then bond the MEA perimeter in place and if you do a neat job, the rest of the ICF insulation should hold them snugly in place while that happens - do brace them on the perpendicular though to make sure they're tight against the concrete. Foam any gaps with LE foam. On my build, I applied sheets of 200mm EPS to the rest of the basement exterior so would have ended up with a similar finish to yours. To fix the lightwells themselves, I waited until we'd backfilled more or less up to the level of the lightwell as they are quite heavy and you don;t want to be lifting them up far. There is a little drain at the bottom, on ours we just fixed this to a small section of pipe but as the backfill was large stone (100mm) any water just flows through that so was a bit unnecessary. I got them in position and put in the coach bolts with a few turns each to bite. I then applied the adhesive all the way round and then screwed them tight home. After 24 hours I put the grilles on and then covered to stop too much crud getting in. Finished the backfill. Quite DIYable and a spare pair of hands won't hurt, even though I did mine solo.

Yes - exactly what we did. If there are services in the way then they'll be in the way for your foundations. If the basement is full footprint then it acts as the foundation of the house so is cost effective. We applied for planning for the above ground house first and then added the basement on a second application, sailed through.

Exactly what we had.

Thankfully our site spoil was a gravely mix with chalk , problem is it has taken ages to settle in the area where it was used.

Ours was larger, fist sized rocks that looked to be a a mix of brick, road surface and rock. Worked well though. The two things you're looking for is something that will drain freely and that will not settle over time. The recycled shingle looks good but have they looked to get the clean stone? On one stretch of our backfill (at rear, where the patio now is) the ground worker ran out of stone skimped and used site spoil. This would have been OK if compacted with a whacker every 150mm but that obviously never happened and the area slumped quite significantly during the above ground build and has settled ever since. Happened the one week I was off site. Even when the landscaper whacked the surface and laid another 50cm of hardcore, it's still settling and the patio slabs are no-longer flat. Will need addressing at some point.

I would advise preparing for an appeal (argumentation etc) and then get a local planning consultant to discuss this with the planners, with a 'look again' option held out as a way for them to gracefully stand down. We achieved this simply by producing some axiometric (i.e. as viewed on a 45o angle) drawings and low and behold the objections evaporated - it did not require changing the scheme, which had already been toned down once following the original refusal.

Good idea, needs more gargoyle.

Have you not seen 2001? It will soon be singing nursery rhymes and locking you out of the house. 'Turn on the hot water Grundfos'. 'I'm afraid I can't do that Andrew'

I remember Property Ladder being full of similarly deluded people. Most of the time the rising property market was the majority of their profit - if they had sat tight and done nothing they would have made more money. Friend worked on the crew from time to time - says the producers filtered out all the sensible people as they would not make good TV. Anyway, it's tabloid daytime TV for the unemployed and retired, best not to take too seriously.

My spark used a combination of prox sensors in the bathrooms and detecting the light being switched on (something to do with the neturals) and used that to trigger both the hot return pump and the MVHR boost. All I know is that it works a treat.

Sky uses same local loop as BT and everyone else apart from VM for broadband so will be just as slow.

When you speak to a VM sales rep, they are a min wage drone with no ability to do anything other than enter your details in a database. We have a similar situation - about 100m away from where VM terminates in our street but there was zero chance of it every coming further. VM rep was confident that he would make it happen etc. Anyway, went with BT as that's what we had previously.

What Joe said. We buttered up the neighbours and they all objected anyway. The 8 page objection contemplated the history of our beech hedge (you can't protect a hedge), the ecological impact of concrete and that there was 'too much' parking provision etc etc. All politely noted and rejected as valid criteria by the planners. We built it and they all tell us how nice it is now.

A word on objections and planning. You can have zero objection and still get refused. You can have a hundred and still get planning (over a certain number of objections it gets pulled into committee vs being at the officers discretion). What is relevant is planning law and your LA's planning policy - some of it is very subjective ('not in keeping' is the alternative to 'out of character') but that cuts both ways when you appeal. TBH - I would not have made the initial withdrawl and changes unless the planner hinted heavily that it would have got it through. I would appeal and maybe re-submit option 1 also and be prepared to appeal that too. I do believe planners like to justify their existence somewhat and rely on compliance by the public. They don't like appeals as they need to defend them and if they loose too many it does not look good. Get a planning consultant on your side, maybe one who is an ex LA planner (they tend to have the local understanding and also relationships). One of our neighbours is a conveyancing solicitor. For our application 1 (rejected) and 2 (largely the same as 1 with a few minor concessions) they wrote 8 page objections with every possible angle explored. Planners did not take any of their points but rejected 1 on separate issues. They were poised to reject 2 as well until the consultant got them on the phone and said we will be appealing both schemes and we both know applicant will win. He then gave them a graceful climbdown option of 'what do you need to see to make you comfortable' (n.b. NOT what needs to change, we had already compromised to our limit in app 2). They settled on a seeing 3d render vs the starker 2d elevations and low and behold, problems evaporated. As @the_r_sole says, many ways to skin the cat wrt schemes but you need to know where the red lines are, if they really exist. And finally, while everyone invests a lot emotionally into these processes, do not take it personally. It is just one of the many mountains you will climb on this journey so just treat it as an unpleasant bit of necessary bureaucracy. Good luck!

Depends how valuable your time is really. It's not a complicated process and the collective intelligence on this forum removes much of the guesswork. I'd ask your accountant how experienced they are in this area and how many of these they have done before. And as @markc says above, you'll need to do much of the legwork to provide all the raw information and they will only know what you tell them. During my build I lazily stuffed every physical receipt / invoice etc into a shoebox and then when the claim deadline approached, spent a few hours over a few weekends sorting them, printing out the online ones, chasing up missing ones etc. The completion of the form and filing of the receipts took another few hours. Scanned everything in in case it went missing etc. Would I have paid £1200 to get that done? No, especially since 80% of the work would still have been on me. Doubt I'd even pay £350 + VAT but again it's what your time is worth to you.

I've seen it explained before that trades are less price sensitive as they pass the cost onto their clients. Their concern is cash flow and credit, which the BMs provide. Direct to consumer is highly price sensitive which is why the online model works so well - the likes of Amazon use dynamic pricing to track competitors and general demand, it's all very sophisticated. On line also means you can offer a much wider range. The likes of Screwfix and Toolstation seem to have the balance right though, although they don't do the bulk products BMs specialise in.

Does not always need to be a bungalow. We bought a tired 1950's 3 bed detached on a large plot (1/2 acre). Replaced with a house that was larger (inc full basement) and to a passive standard. Advantage of demolishing and rebuilding are that all services are already in place - electricity and water can be particularly expensive to run to a green field plot - as is access and boundaries with existing properties. Unless you're in ANOB or conservation area, then you should have a pretty free hand with design. Also, barring asbestos etc, demolishing is normally £5-10k and some materials can be reused on site for hard standing etc.

My roofer also tossed lots of bits and bobs from the Velux kit in the skip (I was not impressed) but looked to mostly be associated with the insulation pack (the blanket bit) or optional parts for different roof materials. I doubt the insulation made much difference as the roof is super insulated. Never had any issues. WRT payment, is his work guaranteed? Will he return if there are problems?

I have 4 Velux Integra windows (240v) and six motorised blinds, bought in 2015. Blinds on the Integra windows plug in and get 12v power and control signal. Each window came with a nifty wall mounted touch screen controller, I bought two KUX10 units to control the other two blinds which are on standard Velux windows - they come with a simple up/down remote but will talk to the LCD controller. You can pair any window to any controller (within their radio range) and set them up individually or in groups, have auto programs based on time etc. I have the controllers dotted around the house so I can work the windows from any floor.

That is a surprising change - previous experience was that passive or 'eco' house deterred run of the mill buyers as it suggested a compromised lifestyle for occupants or lots of complex tech to manage.

Just checked the dimensions and it's 1.8m x 3.3 There is loads of space, most things are not that deep so there is still space for a large table with tools etc under it.

Ask a SE for advice.